Racing Engineering’s Norman Nato stormed to victory at the GP2 feature race in Spain, securing his maiden win in the feeder series.
Pierre Gasly started from pole position and led the way through the pit stops, but with seven laps to go Nato made a brave move at Turn 10 and managed to sneak into first place.
He quickly moved clear of the Prema Racing driver and built up a comfortable advantage over the closing stages, only for the race to end under the safety car after Raffaele Marciello was pushed into the gravel by Antonio Giovinazzi.
Nato claimed the win from DAMS driver Nicholas Latifi, who also snuck ahead of Gasly. The Red Bull junior slipped to third but held off Artem Markelov to claim the final podium position.
It was a strong race from Markelov, with the Russian moving ahead of Sergio Canamasas late on, the Spaniard having moved up from 15th on the grid.
Alex Lynn was able to move ahead in the second DAMS car late on and snatch fifth, with Canamasas sixth and Jordan King seventh in the second Racing Engineering machine.
Giovinazzi finished eighth despite the late drama, with Gustav Malja ninth and Oliver Rowland 10th, recovering from a messy first lap.
Nobuharu Matsushita, Mitch Evans, Seal Gelael, Artur Pic and Daniel de Jong were next up, with some experienced names battling towards the back of the midfield pack.
Marvin Kirchhofer and Jimmy Eriksson were 16th and 17th. Marciello was classified 18th and Nabil Jeffri retired in the pits but was registered as finishing 19th.
Philo Paz Armand failed to finish, while front-runner Sergey Sitorkin looked to be challenging for the win until he spun and stalled his car, bringing out a mid-race safety car.
Luca Ghiotto also brought out an early safety car after picking up a puncture at Turn 2 and going off at the following corner, crashing into the barrier.
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