MOTOR RACING ROUNDUP : Rahal Laps the Field in New England 200

Bobby Rahal won a high-speed duel with Michael Andretti after a day of darting in and out of traffic Sunday, earning a key victory in the Indy car points championship battle.

Rahal, the two-time series champion, passed Andretti with 39 laps to go to win the inaugural New England 200 at New Hampshire International Speedway at Laudon.

“This is a place where you had to pass wherever you could pass,” Rahal said. “I was up in the gray a few times making passes, but it was fun out there because my car was really handling well. It was really a lot of fun.”

Rahal, who won by more than a lap, ended Andretti’s victory string at two and added to his margin in the 1992 points race by leading 125 of 200 laps on the one-mile oval.

A year ago, Andretti won eight of the final 12 races to overtake Rahal for his first championship. Andretti appeared to be ready to make the same kind of charge after winning at Portland and Milwaukee last month.

“You get sick and tired of being called ‘Mr. Consistency,’ ” Rahal said. “You want to win, and we needed to beat Michael. It was just a matter of who could get through traffic the best and then go like hell.”

It was Rahal’s third victory of the season and 23rd of his career.

Rahal has 117 points after eight of the 16 races. Al Unser Jr., eighth Sunday, remains second with 85, followed by Emerson Fittipaldi with 81. Fittipaldi finished last in the 21-car field because of engine failure.

The 55,000 people who ignored threatening skies to turn out for the first Indy-car race in New England in 64 years were hoping for a battle to the end, but Andretti made an unscheduled pit stop on lap 181.

“The car suddenly got real loose,” Andretti explained. “We thought it was a tire going down. It was just a precaution we felt we had to take. I don’t know if it would have made a difference anyway because Bobby’s car ran better on old tires.”

Rahal averaged 133.621 m.p.h.

Briton Nigel Mansell won the rain-interrupted French Grand Prix, his sixth victory in eight races this season.

Mansell finished in 1 hour 38 minutes 8.459 seconds to beat his Williams-Renault teammate Riccardo Patrese of Italy by 46.447 seconds at Magny Cours. They were well ahead of the field as rain plagued the race over the last 30 laps.

Martin Brundle of Britain finished third overall in a Benetton-Ford.

It was the 27th victory for Mansell in Formula One racing, tied for third all-time with countryman Jackie Stewart. Alain Prost of France leads with 44 victories.

Rain stopped the race for about 20 minutes during the 20th lap. The cars restarted at the positions they held after 18 laps, with Patrese holding a lead of 0.935 seconds over Mansell. The restart reduced the race from 72 laps to 69.

At the end of the first lap of the restart, Patrese waved his Williams teammate by, giving Mansell the overall lead at Lap 21. He stretched the margin the rest of the way and won comfortably at Magny Cours for the second consecutive year.

Miss Budweiser, driven by Chip Hanauer, won the five-lap final with an average speed of 142.921 m.p.h. in the Madison Regatta on the Ohio River in Madison, Ind.

It was the fourth consecutive victory for the unlimited hydroplane.

The Winston Eagle, driven by Mark Tate, was second, and Mark Evans was third in the American Spirit.