Imola European F3: Lotus F1 protege Ocon closes on title with win

Ocon got the jump on front-row partner Jordan King, who suffered a slipping clutch after the cars were held for a long time on the red lights.

An early safety car posed no problems for Frenchman Ocon, whose Prema Powerteam Dallara-Mercedes scorched away from King immediately after the restart.

But towards the middle of the race the Briton's Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen started closing, and Ocon was forced to push to maintain his advantage.

"I did a really good start and directly I pulled away a little bit," said Ocon.

"I did a good restart as well, but at some points of the race he was a little bit quicker so I had to take some risks."

King was pursued at a distance by team-mate Tom Blomqvist. The Jagonya Ayam protege was testing a new set-up after he missed one of the midweek test days due to concussion from a domestic fall, and shook off a post-safety car challenge from Felix Rosenqvist to complete the podium.

Blomqvist has moved up to second place at the expense of Max Verstappen in the championship and is 97 points behind Ocon with 125 still available.

Verstappen, starting 15th as he was serving the second of his three 10-place grid penalties for an engine change, failed to finish.

He stormed up to seventh in the early going, but ran over the sleeping-policemen kerbs at Tamburello while trying an outside move on Jake Dennis for sixth, pitching himself into the gravel on the outside and down to ninth place.

A few laps later Verstappen was hit by Antonio Fuoco at Rivazza, a move for which the Italian earned a drive-through penalty and which dropped the Toro Rosso Formula 1 signing out of the points.

His misery was completed when he tangled with Roy Nissany while battling for 11th, putting both out of the race, and Verstappen is now 102 points adrift of Ocon. He has also been given a suspended race ban.

Behind the leading quartet, Antonio Giovinazzi was fairly close in the early stages before dropping back in a secure fifth, while Lucas Auer slipstreamed his way past Dennis into Tamburello to claim sixth.

The points places were completed by Felix Serralles, Tatiana Calderon and Sean Gelael.

The safety car was caused by a first lap clash between Fortec team-mates Santino Ferrucci and Martin Cao, after which Ferrucci retired to the pits and Cao was left stranded in a dangerous position.

RESULTS - 20 LAPS: