Hancock looked good all day at Western Springs, where the inaugural NZ GP was being hosted.

In the final he flew out of gate three and charged around the outside of Jarek Hampel, who was going off gate one, to take the chequered flag.

Nicki Pedersen came in third ahead of Jason Crump to round off an excellent start to the new GP season.

"I am 41 years young but that is only in appearance inside I feel like a kid and it works for me," Hancock told Sky Sports 1 HD after sealing the win.

"The anticipation has been great all winter, last time I won the world title I had a horrible start the year after but I have perfect bikes and mechanics and they did a great job."

He paid tribute to the New Zealand fans, as over 20,000 packed out the newest venue on the GP circuit.

"These fans cheered for everyone and we love that. It is a great kick off for the season but there is a long way to go for us," he added.

From the off it was clear that the old guard were on form Down Under with Tomasz Gollob and Hancock dominating the qualifying on 14 points each.

Flamboyant Swede Antonio Linback was also excellent and came through on 12, with Hampel, Crump, Pedersen, Freddie Lindgren and Emil Sayfutdinov making up the semi-final contenders.

There was some big name casualties too with the highly fancied pair of Andreas Jonsson and Chris Holder both falling short of the top-eight.

Britain's Chris Harris finished on five points and never looked like progressing, although even going into his last race in Heat 20 he did have a chance of making the semis, but Sayfutdinov made sure he progressed instead.

Semis

Into the semi-finals and Hampel won the first, but appeared hugely fortunate to get away with what appeared to be a rolling start. The previously imperious looking Gollob also failed to get the better of Pedersen as he surprisingly went out.

The second semi-final saw Jason Crump win off gate two, but Antonio Lindback would have been left ruing his decision to choose gate three, allowing the Australian to start inside him. Crump made no mistakes progressing with Hancock.

Hampel and Crump choose gates one and two, but it was Hancock off three that made the start. He found the dirt-line on the outside and drove past Hampel to go on take the inaugural title.

The GP bandwagon rolls back into Europe next month with Leszno in Poland hosting the European Grand Prix.