Paul Ricard FR3.5: Jules Bianchi wins and takes points lead

The Ferrari junior driver came out on top after a race-long duel with race one winner Antonio Felix da Costa in damp conditions, while previous championship leader Robin Frijns struggled to ninth place.

Bianchi led the early laps of the race from pole, but a mistake on lap five allowed da Costa, who had started seventh, to take the lead.

That is how it stayed until the mandatory pitstops, when Bianchi came in a lap earlier than the Red Bull-backed racer and took the lead as da Costa accelerated away from his own stop.

From there Bianchi was able to control the race, managing a lead of around three to four seconds to the chequered flag.

Da Costa was a comfortable second, while Sam Bird gave his own title hopes a boost heading into next month's Barcelona finale with a podium finish.

Nick Yelloly put his wet weather skills to good use again to climb from ninth to fourth, as the likes of Kevin Magnussen, Alexander Rossi and Arthur Pic either spun or got caught up in incidents.

Despite all those top 10 starters hitting trouble, Frijns could still only salvage two points from his second tough race of the weekend.

The Dutchman climbed from eighth to fourth at the start, but he gradually slipped down the order. He fought hard over the final couple of laps to keep Kevin Korjus at bay, but lost out to the Estonian on the final lap.

Bianchi's win means he heads to the Barcelona double-header with a five-point lead over Frijns. Bird is 24 points behind the Frenchman, with 50 still available.

Results - 21 laps:

Pos  Driver                  Team               Time/Gap
 1.  Jules Bianchi           Tech 1           46m48.147s
 2.  Antonio Felix da Costa  Arden Caterham     + 5.046s
 3.  Sam Bird                ISR               + 20.979s
 4.  Nick Yelloly            Comtec            + 28.811s
 5.  Marco Sorensen          Lotus             + 33.743s
 6.  Aaro Vainio             RFR               + 34.130s
 7.  Nico Muller             Draco             + 40.480s
 8.  Kevin Korjus            Lotus             + 45.436s
 9.  Robin Frijns            Fortec            + 48.660s
10.  Lucas Foresti           DAMS              + 51.703s
11.  Will Stevens            Carlin            + 58.890s
12.  Walter Grubmuller       P1              + 1m01.309s
13.  Davide Rigon            BVM Target      + 1m01.523s
14.  Arthur Pic              DAMS            + 1m02.497s
15.  Carlos Huertas          Fortec          + 1m11.138s
16.  Alexander Rossi         Arden Caterham  + 1m12.616s
17.  Mikhail Aleshin         RFR             + 1m19.746s
18.  Daniel Abt              Tech 1          + 1m43.544s
19.  Yann Cunha              Pons            + 1m49.989s
20.  Jake Rosenzweig         ISR                 + 1 lap
21.  Nikolay Martsenko       BVM Target          + 1 lap
22.  Andre Negrao            Draco               + 1 lap
23.  Vittorio Ghirelli       Comtec              + 1 lap

Retirements:

     Kevin Magnussen         Carlin              19 laps
     Daniil Move             P1                  19 laps
     Zoel Amberg             Pons                 0 laps