He was quickest in practice by six tenths of a second, set pole three tenths up on his nearest rival and led the race from start to finish setting fastest lap - but he was adjudged to have allowed his car to creep forward on the grid when the red lights were on and so got a 25 second penalty that dropped him to fifth in the official results.

Morley-based Tim found the new circuit, designed for Formula 1's first ever night race to be a superb track, challenging and difficult to learn.

Before the first practice he had walked round the track three times and done a further two laps on a bicycle and in a class where all the cars are to the exact same specification and so times are close at the top of the field he was 0.6 seconds faster than the next best. In qualifying he only did three flying laps, all of which were good enough for pole so was confident in the race and led away to pull out a gap before a pace car was needed while a damaged car was removed. After the restart the field had closed up, but again he pulled away to lead at the end by three seconds.

When informed of the penalty he accepted he had made a mistake on the grid in allowing the car to creep before the lights went out, saying: "It was my fault, my foot slipped slightly on the pedal."

The drop to fifth leaves Tim lying third in the championship behind Hong Kong's Daryl O'Young and Australia's Christian Jones, but with only three races left he now needs his rivals to make mistakes if he is to retain his title.

The next race is on October 19 at the Chinese F1 Grand Prix in Shanghai where Tim has three wins and a second to his credit in his last four races on the circuit.