Brazil's Bruno Junqueira cruised to victory at the Gold Coast Indy behind a safety car after another explosive end to the Surfers Paradise street race.

With five laps to go in the 57 lap race Patrick Carpentier's Lola lost its nose cone and crashed head-on into a cement wall, breaking apart as it careered hundreds of metres into rubber tyre barriers.

The high speed crash brought out the yellow flag and put an end to racing.

Carpentier was knocked unconscious and taken to hospital as a precaution but suffered no major injuries.

A bumper crowd of 109,321 spilled from highrises onto balconies and rooftops to watch the climax of the motor racing spectacle which attracted a new four day record audience of 309,583.

Junqueira is the 14th different driver in the 14 year history of the race to win on the Gold Coast.

The Brazilian also cut the world series lead of Newman Haas teammate, Sebastien Bourdais, to 22 points and kept alive the championship until the season finale in Mexico next month.

Mario Dominguez of Mexico was third.

Driving to survive Australia's David Besnard finished an impressive seventh in the field of 19 despite two spin outs during the 57 lap race.

"For a couple of weeks we've been talking about 'I've just got to finish. I've just got to finish' but the next think I know I am facing the other way," said Besnard.

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