GP3 champion Valtteri Bottas wins at Donington Park on his return to Formula 3

The Finn sliced his Double R Racing Dallara-Mercedes between the all-Fortec front row of Will Buller and Harry Tincknell to take the lead at the start.

The double Masters of F3 winner then romped away on a drying track to win by 14.2 seconds after 13 laps of the Grand Prix circuit.

Behind the runaway winner, Buller eventually won an epic scrap for second with Tincknell, Double R's Scott Pye and T-Sport's Menasheh Idafar.

Pye made a great start to split the Fortec pair for the first half of the race, while Idafar made short work of rising from 11th on the grid to latch on to this group.

The battle came to the boil shortly after half-distance, when Pye attemped to dive inside Buller at the Melbourne Hairpin. As his rivals slithered wide, Tincknell undercut both on the exit, but fell back to fourth as Pye and Buller went back inside him at the following Goddards left-hand hairpin.

Tincknell sliced back underneath both again on the exit to briefly hold second once more, but was repassed by Buller on the next lap before a later brush with Pye at McLeans dropped him to fifth as Pye retired to the pits with a puncture.

Idafar was thus promoted to third and set about attacking Buller over the final three laps. The British-born Bahraini came up just short after an impressive drive, as Buller clung on through the last few corners.

Carlin's Jazeman Jaafar just held off a recovering Tincknell to claim fourth, while Jaafar's Carlin team-mate Carlos Huertas did likewise to Fortec charger Lucas Foresti (up from 17th on the grid) to round out the top six.

Yesterday's race-winner Rupert Svendsen-Cook finished eighth, after jumping rookie Carlin team-mate Jack Harvey on the final lap, as Felipe Nasr claimed the final point on offer for 10th after starting from the back row of the 21-car grid.

The champion elect and Carlin team-mate Kevin Magnussen both gambled on starting with slicks on a wet track, as the majority opted for wets, but their un-treaded tyres took too long to come good.

Nasr thus made little progress in the early stages, but improved late-on to make the top 10 and claim the extra two bonus points on offer for fastest lap.

Magnussen went off the road at Goddards on the final lap and trailed home 16th.

Results - 13 laps:

Pos  Driver                Team/Car                    Time/Gap
 1.  Valtteri Bottas       Double R Dallara-Merc     20m39.657s
 2.  Will Buller           Fortec Dallara-Merc        + 14.247s
 3.  Menasheh Idafar       T-Sport Dallara-VW         + 14.429s
 4.  Jazeman Jaafar        Carlin Dallara-VW          + 24.456s
 5.  Harry Tincknell       Fortec Dallara-Merc        + 24.712s
 6.  Carlos Huertas        Carlin Dallara-VW          + 27.200s
 7.  Lucas Foresti         Fortec Dallara-Merc        + 27.347s
 8.  Rupert Svendsen-Cook  Carlin Dallara-VW          + 27.813s
 9.  Jack Harvey           Carlin Dallara-VW          + 28.596s
10.  Felipe Nasr           Carlin Dallara-VW          + 31.965s
11.  Yann Cunha            T-Sport Dallara-VW         + 34.688s
12.  Adderly Fong          Sino Vision Dallara-Merc   + 35.185s
13.  Hywel Lloyd           Sino Vision Dallara-Merc   + 35.555s
14.  Pietro Fantin         Hitech Dallara-VW          + 40.681s
15.  Maxim Snegirev        Hitech Dallara-VW          + 44.743s
16.  Kevin Magnussen       Carlin Dallara-VW          + 52.772s
17.  Fahmi Ilyas           Fortec Dallara-Merc        + 54.088s

Retirements:

     Scott Pye             Double R Dallara-Merc        10 laps
     Pipo Derani           Double R Dallara-Merc         8 laps
     Kotaro Sakurai        Hitech Dallara-Mugen          5 laps
     Bart Hylkema          T-Sport Dallara-VW             1 lap