Kevin Magnussen made up for the disappointment of his race one exclusion to take victory in the second Formula Renault 3.5 race at Paul Ricard.

The McLaren junior driver controlled the race from pole position, clearing off into the distance in the early laps before managing his lead at around five seconds from then on.

Behind him, Nico Muller came home as best of the rest, having taken advantage of an early pit stop to jump Marco Sorensen and Antonio Felix da Costa, both of whom had slightly slow stops.

Sorensen had run second early on, fending off da Costa after the Red Bull junior had got past Muller for third in the early corners. But the Dane lost out when his team struggled to change the left-rear wheel, and he rejoined fifth with Nigel Melker getting past him as well.

Sorensen launched a few attacks on Melker in the closing laps but could not find a way through, while ahead of them Muller had da Costa covered throughout the second stint of the race.

Sixth place went to 2010 champion Mikhail Aleshin, who used a clever strategy to find clear track and climb from 12th on the grid.

While Magnussen’s exclusion from race one meant it was impossible for him to secure the title this weekend, a retirement for title rival Stoffel Vandoorne means he carries a 43-point lead to the Barcelona finale with 50 points still available.

Vandoorne had a race to forget, dropping from seventh to ninth at the start and eventually falling out of the points after a couple of offs at the chicane on the backstraight before he brought his troublesome car into the pits to retire.

Results - 25 laps:Pos  Driver                  Team              Time/Gap 1.  Kevin Magnussen         DAMS            47m24.323s 2.  Nico Muller             Draco              +5.550s 3.  Antonio Felix da Costa  Arden Caterham     +9.964s 4.  Nigel Melker            Tech 1            +14.129s 5.  Marco Sorensen          Lotus             +14.544s 6.  Mikhail Aleshin         Tech 1            +17.813s 7.  Arthur Pic              AV                +23.004s 8.  Will Buller             Zeta              +23.827s 9.  Norman Nato             DAMS              +24.122s10.  Marlon Stockinger       Lotus             +29.962s11.  Andre Negrao            Draco             +35.846s12.  Nikolay Martsenko       Pons              +42.421s13.  Will Stevens            P1/Strakka        +43.676s14.  Jazeman Jaafar          Carlin            +44.536s15.  Zoel Amberg             Pons              +44.702s16.  Matias Laine            P1/Strakka        +48.679s17.  Lucas Foresti           SMP/Comtec        +48.807s18.  Carlos Huertas          Carlin            +50.738s19.  Christopher Zanella     ISR               +51.406s20.  Pietro Fantin           Arden Caterham    +52.117s21.  Daniil Move             SMP/Comtec        +52.665s22.  Oliver Webb             Fortec          +1m04.611sRetirements:     Stoffel Vandoorne       Fortec             21 laps     Sergey Sirotkin         ISR                21 laps     Yann Cunha              AV                  3 laps     Carlos Sainz Jr         Zeta                0 laps