ART's Nyck De Vries romped to victory in the French Formula 2 Feature race after making an incredible start.
The Dutchman made a superb getaway from fourth on the grid to take the lead of the race by sweeping around the outside of Turn 1 after going four-wide into the corner.
De Vries carried relentless pace throughout the race despite the numerous appearances from the Virtual Safety Car and even an early red flag in the 31-lap race.
The toughest moment of the race came when De Vries lost out to Campos Racing's Jack Aitken on lap 9 as he made his mandatory pit stop, but the pair raced hard and fair and the Dutchman swiftly reclaimed the lead into the Nord Chicane and didn't look back from there.
The ART driver even set the fastest lap of the race on the final lap by over a second – showing how much he had in reserve.
Sergio Sette Camara did battle with Aitken in the latter stages of the race and was able to claim second-place from the British driver after losing out to him on the opening lap, Aitken had to settle for the final spot on the podium.
Guanyu Zhou was unable to keep pace with the leading trio despite having started on the front row, the Chinese driver brought home his UNI-Virtuosi in fourth place.
The second DAMS of Nicholas Latifi battled hard with MP Motorsport's Jordan King towards the end of the race. The pair finished in fifth and sixth place respectively.
Juan Manuel Correa crossed the line in seventh ahead of the BWT Arden of Anthoine Hubert who snatched eighth place from Carlin's Noboharu Matsushita on the final lap, meaning the Frenchman will start Sunday's sprint race from pole position.
Matsushita and Trident's Giuliano Alesi round out the top ten.
The race saw a Virtual Safety Car which turned into a red flag on the second lap after Prema's Sean Gelael slammed into the back of team-mate Mick Schumacher on the opening lap, causing heavy damage to both cars.
Schumacher tried to bring his car back with a delaminated right rear which was causing damage to the floor of the car and littered the track with debris. Gelael's car was stranded in Turn 3 also. Nikita Mazepin and Ralph Boschung also collided on the opening lap in T6 ending both their races. Campos' Dorian Boccolacci came to a halt in T13 on lap 3 which forced race control to throw the red flag.
Charouz's Callum Ilott was the next driver to drop out of the race after colliding with Matsushita on Lap 14 in L'Beausset whilst trying to make a tough move on the inside of the Japanese driver. The pair did briefly touch in the previous corner, Signes.
Championship challenger Luca Ghiotto led briefly after trying the alternate strategy by starting on the hard tyre, however, once he switched to the soft tyres he was unable to get back up to pace and dropped out of the race after colliding with Correa in Turn 6.
Sunday's sprint race will get underway at 11.25am local time.
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