Mortara extends lead with victory

The Signature driver lost the lead to his team-mate Laurens Vanthoor at the start, but he retook the place on the brakes into the first corner.

From there he gradually pulled away, before easing off once he had the gap above two seconds.

Vanthoor had a lonely race to second to complete a Signature one-two, while Mucke's Roberto Merhi held off ART's Alexander Sims to the end to take third.

Sims got close on a few occasions as Merhi battled a visibly difficult car, but their scrap ended when the Briton locked a wheel and ran wide at Turn 5 on the penultimate lap.

Behind them, Marco Wittmann was left to rue a bad start, which had dropped him from fourth to seventh on the opening lap.

The German recovered to take fifth, but he is now 22 points behind Mortara in the standings.

Sixth place went to Valtteri Bottas (ART), who made up six positions at the start with a bold move around the outside of the first corner.

The Finn, trying to make up ground after a 10-place grid penalty cost him a front row start, was briefly knocked back to seventh by Wittmann. But he retook sixth when Antonio Felix da Costa made a mistake going onto the backstraight on lap 12.

Jim Pla was next up in eighth, giving him pole position for Sunday's reversed-grid race. However, the Frenchman only inherited the place when Carlos Munoz was given a drive-through penalty for not lining up properly on the grid.