Harrison Scott held off the race-long threat from Lando Norris to secure his third victory of the season and move up to second place in the championship standings behind his fellow Briton.
Just 0.152 seconds separated the AVF by Adrian Vallés driver from the Josef Kaufmann Racing driver at the chequered flag at Paul Ricard, but no matter what Norris threw at Scott it was not enough to get ahead.
Will Palmer initially took the lead at the start having swept around the outside of polesitter Scott, but a great move by the AVF driver around the outside of the chicane brought him back into the lead, and with Palmer compromised as he attempted to fight back it allowed Norris to move into second.
Palmer was able to maintain third for R-ace GP, meaning the podium positions were all filled by British drivers, with the 2015 BRDC F4 champion able to hold off team-mate Max Defourny until the chequered flag.
Dorian Boccolacci put in a storming drive to recover from a lowly P17 on the grid to claim fifth, with the Tech 1 Racing driver ultimately passing team-mate Sacha Fenestraz for that fifth position, but he was too far behind the leading quartet to make up any ground.
Boccolacci and Fenestraz were both able to displace Josef Kaufmann Racing’s Robert Shwartzman, who was forced to settle for seventh, while Ferdinand Habsburg was another to make gains in the race to finish eighth for Fortec Motorsports having started fifteenth.
Julien Falchero made it three R-ace GP drivers inside the top nine, while Antoni Ptak took tenth on his Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 debut for Cram Motorsport, just ahead of JD Motorsport’s Alexey Korneev.
There was disappointment for Fortec Motorsports’ Nikita Troitskiy, who was spun out of a top ten position by Tech 1 Racing’s Gabriel Aubry, who pitted to assess the damage on his own car before resuming the race, albeit well down the order.
Paul Ricard Race 1 Result
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