Ricard FR3.5: Kevin Magnussen closes on title with win

The McLaren junior controlled the race from pole position, clearing off into the distance in the early laps before managing his lead at around five seconds from then on.

Behind him, Nico Muller came home as best of the rest, having taken advantage of an early pitstop to jump Marco Sorensen and Antonio Felix da Costa - both of whom had slightly slow stops.

Sorensen had run second early on, fending off da Costa after the Red Bull junior had got past Muller for third in the early corners.

But the Dane lost out when his team struggled to change the left rear wheel, and he rejoined fifth with Nigel Melker getting past him as well.

Sorensen launched a few attacks on Melker in the closing laps but could not find a way through, while ahead of them Muller had da Costa covered throughout the second stint of the race.

Sixth place went to 2010 champion Mikhail Aleshin, who used a clever strategy to find clear track and climb from 12th on the grid.

While Magnussen's exclusion from race one meant it was impossible for him to seal the title this weekend, a retirement for title rival Stoffel Vandoorne means he carries a 43-point lead to the Barcelona finale with 50 points still available.

Vandoorne had a race to forget, dropping from seventh to ninth at the start and eventually falling out of the points after a couple of offs at the chicane on the backstraight before he brought his troublesome car into the pits to retire.

Results - 25 laps:

Pos  Driver                  Team              Time/Gap
 1.  Kevin Magnussen         DAMS            47m24.323s
 2.  Nico Muller             Draco              +5.550s
 3.  Antonio Felix da Costa  Arden Caterham     +9.964s
 4.  Nigel Melker            Tech 1            +14.129s
 5.  Marco Sorensen          Lotus             +14.544s
 6.  Mikhail Aleshin         Tech 1            +17.813s
 7.  Arthur Pic              AV                +23.004s
 8.  Will Buller             Zeta              +23.827s
 9.  Norman Nato             DAMS              +24.122s
10.  Marlon Stockinger       Lotus             +29.962s
11.  Andre Negrao            Draco             +35.846s
12.  Nikolay Martsenko       Pons              +42.421s
13.  Will Stevens            P1/Strakka        +43.676s
14.  Jazeman Jaafar          Carlin            +44.536s
15.  Zoel Amberg             Pons              +44.702s
16.  Matias Laine            P1/Strakka        +48.679s
17.  Lucas Foresti           SMP/Comtec        +48.807s
18.  Carlos Huertas          Carlin            +50.738s
19.  Christopher Zanella     ISR               +51.406s
20.  Pietro Fantin           Arden Caterham    +52.117s
21.  Daniil Move             SMP/Comtec        +52.665s
22.  Oliver Webb             Fortec          +1m04.611s

Retirements:

     Stoffel Vandoorne       Fortec             21 laps
     Sergey Sirotkin         ISR                21 laps
     Yann Cunha              AV                  3 laps
     Carlos Sainz Jr         Zeta                0 laps