Marco Sorensen took his first Formula Renault 3.5 win of the season in dominant style at Spielberg.

The Danish driver controlled the race from start to finish, and comfortably dealt with two restarts after safety car periods to take a four-second victory ahead of Nigel Melker.

Melker, who was unable to judge when Sorensen would restart on both occasions and fell back, made relatively easy work of pulling away from Kevin Magnussen, who retook the championship lead with a lonely third place after being passed by Melker on the opening lap.

Fourth-placed Will Stevens was the closest of Magnussen’s title chasers, as Stoffel Vandoorne and Antonio Felix da Costa had a day to forget.

Vandoorne was lucky to start the race after his car developed a water leak before the start, but after getting barged down the order in the early laps he was eventually forced to retire.

Da Costa at least made it to the finish, but he struggled for pace throughout the 33 laps and came home a distant seventh.

Things could have got even worse for the Red Bull junior in the closing laps, as Sorensen’s Lotus (Charouz) team-mate Marlon Stockinger was closing on da Costa towards the end of the race. However, Stockinger’s progress was halted when the lapped car of Christopher Zanella inexplicably lunged down the inside of him into Turn 1, and then aggressively blocked him on the run to Turn 2.

Zanella received a 10-second penalty for exceeding track limits after the incident, but that did little to help Stockinger close back up to da Costa.

Results - 33 laps:Pos Driver                  Team               Time/Gap 1. Marco Sorensen          Lotus             46m36.415s 2. Nigel Melker            Tech 1              +4.420s 3. Kevin Magnussen         DAMS                +9.065s 4. Will Stevens            P1/Strakka          +14.629s 5. Arthur Pic              AV                  +17.511s 6. Will Buller             Zeta Corse          +20.107s 7. Antonio Felix da Costa  Arden Caterham      +21.411s 8. Marlon Stockinger       Lotus               +25.752s 9. Andre Negrao            Draco               +27.269s10. Jazeman Jaafar          Carlin              +28.190s11. Zoel Amberg             Pons                +34.231s12. Lucas Foresti           Comtec              +39.229s13. Nico Muller             Draco               +42.355s14. Daniil Move             Comtec              +56.612s15. Yann Cunha              AV                  +1m01.802s16. Christopher Zanella     ISR                 +1 lapRetirements:    Matias Laine            P1/Strakka          15 laps    Sergey Sirotkin         ISR                 11 laps    Norman Nato             DAMS                11 laps    Carlos Huertas          Carlin              11 laps    Stoffel Vandoorne       Fortec              11 laps    Riccardo Agostini       Zeta Corse          8  laps    Pietro Fantin           Arden Caterham      0  laps    Mikhail Aleshin         Tech 1              0  laps    Nikolay Martsenko       Pons                0  laps