Dutch-born Chinese racing driver Tung Ho-pin.[File Photo/cnsphoto]

Tung, 24, made a last-gasp maneuver on German driver Harald Schlegelmilch to snatch victory, his seventh in the 2006 German F3 Championship, at the Salzburgring racetrack in Austria on Sunday. The late surge, along with a second-place finish in the Saturday contest of the double-header weekend, secured him an unbeatable 32-point lead over Ferdinand Kool in the season-long championship with one race to go.

F3, powered by two-liter engines with an output of more than 200 horsepower, is the last but two rung on a racing driver's ladder to Formula One. No ethnic Chinese driver has yet achieved success of this kind on that level.

"It's great to win the championship in style with a race victory," said Tung, who is based in Shanghai during the offseason. "I can now concentrate on the preparations for my next career step and hopefully move up to a senior championship."

Tung rose into prominence in 2004 when he was awarded a F1 test drive by BMW with the old BMW-Williams team after his landslide victory in the Asian Formula BMW Championship.

He has raced in the German F3 Championship ever since and finished third overall last season.

Asked whether time is ripe for a foray into F1, Tung replied: "I'm determined to go in that direction but it all depends on the sponsorship. The realistic approach at this stage is to find a patron who could afford to finance me for a season in GP2 next year."

Drivers in the GP2 tour, whose chassis runs with a 500-plus horsepower output, are normally on the radar of scouts from F1 teams.