SPOILER: 2008 Race of Champions crowns new king among motorsport's best

Yesterday marked the running of the 2008 Race of Champions, an annual event that hosts the world's best drivers from NASCAR, F1, WRCC, LeMans racing and every other legitimate form of four-wheeled competition in the world. The purpose is to race these pilots against each other on an identical track in identical vehicles to find out both which country produces the fastest drivers and which driver is the fastest them of all. This year's arsenal of autos included the KTM X-Bow, Abarth 500 Assetto Corso, 2008 Ford WRC Focus, RX 150 and purpose-built RoC buggy.

Follow the jump for a rundown of the winners and losers as well as video highlights, and check out some great pics of yesterday's action in the gallery below.

The 2008 RoC was once against held at Wembley Stadium in the UK, but unlike last year and the year before, the fastest man alive was not DTM champion Mattias Ekstrom. The two-time RoC champ was surprisingly knocked out in the semi-finals. Another surprising elimination was that of Michael Schumacher, who was shown the door by none other than NASCAR's Carl Edwards in the second round. Schumacher, however, did drive live up to his god-like reputation during the competition for the RoC Nations Cup, which he and partner Sebastian Vettel won on behalf of Germania.



In the end it came down to a best-of-three series between five-time WRC Champion Sebastian Loeb and F1 great David Coulthard. We happened to catch the final battle being live-streamed on Freecaster.tv and were glad we did. Loeb eeked out the championship in the end, but it took him all three races to do it against the formidable Coulthard.

The video meant to be presented here is no longer available. Sorry for the inconvenience.