France international Teddy Thomas was the main beneficiary as he touched down twice before passing up a hat trick as he popped the ball to Maxime Machenaud to score Racing's third try.

Machenaud finished the game with 17 points as Racing quickly extinguished any hopes of an all-Ireland final between Munster and Leinster in Bilbao on May 12.

To their credit, Munster refused to lie down and scored three second-half tries through Simon Zebo, Rhys Marshall and Andrew Conway.

However, it was too little too late after Racing left Munster reeling in the heat of Bordeaux to book their place in the showpiece against Leinster before half-time.

The Irish province would have hoped to negate the heat in western France and build into the contest, but it took their opponents less than five minutes to score the game's opening try.

Camille Chat and Louis Dupichot were both involved as Racing tied up the Munster defence before the ball was shipped out to Thomas, who cantered over for his first score of the match.

Keatley got his side on the board in the 17th minute, but his penalty did little to settle Irish nerves and less than a minute later Thomas dotted down for a second time.

On this occasion it was Virimi Vakatawa who powered through some lacklustre tackling before finding his France teammate on his right shoulder.

If the travelling Munster faithful were hoping that effort might convince their hosts to ease up, they were in for disappointment.

Less than 22 minutes was on the clock when Thomas stepped off his right foot to create the space to dance over the goal line, following good work from Eddy Ben Arous and Henry Chavancy.

However, rather than touch the ball down and confirm a quickfire hat trick the wing chose to hand the ball back to his captain Machenaud to score. It was a piece of showboating that perfectly summed up Racing's dominance in the opening quarter.

The Top 14 side would not score again before the break, but while Munster enjoyed more possession they looked unsure of what to do with it as attack after attack floundered as a result of simple mistakes.

A Machenaud penalty gave Racing the first points of the second half, and while he saw another crash against the crossbar shortly afterwards, Racing appeared happy to defend.

The French side were able to soak up the Munster pressure for the third quarter but with Marc Andreu in the sin bin Zebo gave Munster hope with a 63rd-minute try.

Zebo, who will join Racing at the end of the season, finished from close range less than 30 seconds after his future teammate had been shown a yellow card.

Munster narrowed the deficit still further in the final quarter as Rhys Marshall profited from a forward drive before Conway won the race to a Zebo chip through in the game's final play.

However, the match had been won long before that and Racing were able to conserve energy for much of the second half as their quest for a first European Cup triumph continues.