A1 Team Monaco’s Clivio Piccione gave his off-season a lift at the weekend by winning the Race of Champions South Europe event in Portugal.

The event is acting as a regional qualifier to the full Race of Champions event in China in November, which will featuring champion drivers from all forms of motorsport disciplines.

The win for the Monaco team, comprising Piccione and Le Mans 24 Hours winner, Emmanuelle Pirro, means the pair can enter this season’s final at the Birds’ Nest stadium in Beijing.

Taking place on a specially built figure-of-eight style asphalt track in the stadium of FC Porto, drivers raced a variety of cars against each other in a series of duels.

Monaco’s team beat the Spanish duo of rally drivers Carlos Sainz and Dani Sordo 3-1 in a best-of-five races final. Earlier in the day, Piccione’s team had knocked out fellow A1GP competitor Filipe Albuquerque and his Portugal squad, also containing rally ace Armindo Araujo. That semi-final race proved to the closest in ROC history; with the scores tied at 2-2, Piccione beat Albuquerque at the line by one thousandth of a second to progress the principality to the final.

After the victory, Piccione was thrilled. He said: “It was very important to win here because we are representing our country, which I already do for Monaco in A1GP. I’m very proud of that, and in addition we have come back home with a trophy.”

Race of Champions founder Fredrik Johnsson said: “Congratulations to Monaco. Both Emanuele and Clivio produced excellent performances, and as a team they were unstoppable.”

It is not the first time A1GP drivers have competed in Race of Champions events – Adam Carroll competed for Ireland in the 2008 Race of Champions at Wembley Stadium. However, his Irish team was knocked out early that day.