Kolby takes maiden F3 win

Button, from the outside of the front row, surged ahead of pole man Kolby - whose clutch was overheating - off the line to lead towards the first corner in his Promatecme UK Dallara-Renault.

Kolby's Fortec Motorsport team mate, Matt Davies, then braked incredibly late in his Dallara-Mugen Honda to edge ahead of both Button and Kolby into Hatchets hairpin.

Button and Davies clashed, with the latter being pushed onto the grass and down into the midfield.

That promoted Kolby back to second.

At half-distance in the 20-lapper, the Dane was just over five seconds behind the British teenager, but then Button served his penalty.

He rejoined fourth, behind Kolby, championship leader Luciano Burti and Michael Bentwood, who was having his best F3 race ever.

Button scythed onto Bentwood's tail, passing the Carlin Motorsport Dallara-Mugen and then hunting down Burti. Eventually he sneaked inside the Brazilian's Stewart Racing Dallara-Mugen into Spitfires on the last lap to take a brilliant second.

'If I did jump the start I should be penalised, but I'm not sure that I did,' said Button. 'It was a great race for me anyway. Kristian did a great job - he deserves the win.'

A delighted Kolby said, 'It's bloody great basically. I've been waiting for a long time for this. When I saw P1 on the pit board I thought, 'Oh my God - what have I done to deserve this?' It was like all my Christmases coming at once. I was trying to keep the smile off my face on the last lap - after all, I've not won since I was in Formula Ford in 1996.'

Burti clung on for third, despite feeling as if his ill-balanced car was on ice, while Bentwood did a great job to take fourth.

Davies fought back up to fifth, pressuring Andrew Kirkaldy into a spin on the penultimate lap.

Behind Davies was Burti's main title rival Marc Hynes.

The Englishman had a bad start when Narain Karthikeyan stalled in front of him - Hynes was forced to lift off and swerve around the Indian.

He was able to recover to sixth thanks to the cooperation of his Manor Motorsport team mate Tor Sriachavanon, who let Hynes by halfway through the race.

Burti has now extended his series lead to nine points over Hynes, but the latter starts four places ahead on the grid for this afternoon's 12th round.

Kirkaldy recovered to eighth from National Class winner Martin O'Connell and Toby Scheckter.