Jenson Button dominated the opening race of the Portugal round of The Race Legends Trophy.
The 2009 Formula 1 world champion launched clear from pole with a perfect start and was unstoppable over the course of the 10-lap race, leading by as much as six seconds.
Emanuele Pirro eventually emerged in second after a superb long-running battle with Jan Magnussen.
Pirro had run wide onto the grass through the opening corners, briefly allowing Petter Solberg into third, but recovered and spent the second half of the race scrapping ferociously with Magnussen for second.
That dice was finally resolved when Pirro squeezed down the inside into the first corner and Magnussen half-spun as he tried to cut back in for a better exit.
As Pirro and Magnussen completed the podium, Vitantonio Liuzzi and Adrian Fernandez finished a typically fraught race fourth and fifth.
Solberg’s podium bid ended when he spun and collected David Brabham while rejoining, but he fought back through to sixth.
Button’s victory thrust him to the top of the points table, as erstwhile leader Juan Pablo Montoya had an incident-packed run to 11th.
