Wirdheim: I thought I'd passed chequer.

FIA F3000 points leader Bjorn Wirdheim made a mistake in Monaco that will surely be a feature of sports quiz shows for years to come, but the tall Swede insists that he had seen the chequered flag before slowing down to acknowledge his 'victorious' Arden International team.

After claiming pole position on Friday, Wirdheim dominated the sixth Monaco F3000 event to within 20 metres of the finish line where, believing he had seen the flag at the beginning of the start-finish straight, he slowed short of the actual line, handing the win to a surprised Nicolas Kiesa. Despite flooring the throttle as he finally realised his mistake, the Swede was unable to catch his Danish rival, who admitted to having almost made the same mistake.

"The car was perfect all afternoon, and I honestly thought I had seen the chequered flag on entering the straight, so I slowed down to acknowledge the team," a sheepish Wirdheim confessed, "As you can imagine, I was pretty surprised when I saw Kiesa's name at the top of the scoreboard!"

Leading from the green light, Wirdheim was clearly the class of the field as he built up a 24secs lead with ten laps of the scheduled 45 to go. Following a sizeable crash between Enrico Toccacelo and Vitantonio Liuzzi, which left debris across the road entering Casino Square, the safety car was deployed, negating the Swede's quarter of a lap lead, but, at the restart, he once again pulled away from the chasing pack and appeared set for a convincing victory.

The only consolation for Wirdheim was that his nearest rivals all failed to finish - with Giorgio Pantano and Ricardo Sperafico getting involved with each other in the latter stages - thereby allowing him to increase his championship lead to 18 points, with Arden now 15 ahead in the teams' championship following a double points finish.

"I felt really comfortable in the car all weekend, and it surprised me how easily I could pull away from Sperafico and Pantano," Wirdheim confirmed, "Whilst [the result was] obviously disappointing, I'm really pleased with my performance today - and to have a 18-point lead after four races is fantastic."

Team boss Christian Horner was equally disappointed not to have seen his man become the first double winner of the season, but admitted that Wirdheim's performance - allied to the fat that he managed to increase his points advantage - was something to be happy about.

"Despite Bjorn's mistake at the end of the race, his performance today was outstanding," Horner said, "Often over a second per lap quicker than his rivals, he was clearly in a different league today. Assisted by his main rivals retiring after a collision, an 18-point lead this early in the season is an excellent achievement."