Rookie de Vries, who had finished seventh on Friday and thus lined up alongside teammate Johnny Cecotto for the sprint, was into the lead by Ste Devote and did not relinquish it for the rest of the 30-lap event.

His triumph is the Rapax team's first with the Dallara GP2/11 car since 2015, when Sergey Sirotkin won from pole at Silverstone.

Cecotto, who had recorded his first GP2 win in Monaco back in 2012, was slower than his teammate off the line, allowing de Vries to grab the lead round the outside.

The McLaren junior was 1.5s in the clear after one lap, and while Cecotto managed to keep in touch early on in the race, he eventually began to drop back from de Vries.

The gap between the pair was up to five seconds by halfway point and, by lap 25, Cecotto was 10 seconds adrift, with a train forming up behind him.

Despite that, the Venezuelan held on to second, finishing 9.8s off de Vries.

Gustav Malja, himself a former Rapax driver, scored Racing Engineering's first podium of 2017 with third, holding off Russian Time's Luca Ghiotto.

Ghiotto's teammate Artem Markelov managed to pass Alex Albon down the inside of Rascasse to claim fifth, with the Anglo-Thai settling for sixth, one place ahead of fellow ART driver Nobuharu Matsushita.

MP's Jordan King made up the points-scoring top eight after picking off Oliver Rowland, who was then forced to crawl home after being hit in the back by Trident's Sergio Canamasas.

Qualifying pace-setter Charles Leclerc, who had retired with a suspension issue on Friday after leading much of the race, struggled to make progress from 17th.

He'd managed a couple of overtakes but collided with Arden's Norman Nato after a late dive into Rascasse, leaving Nato to park up in the Antony Noghes run-off with damage.

Leclerc himself picked up a time penalty as a result and pulled over in the pitlane on lap 21 - but the Monegasque will keep the F2 points lead heading into Baku.

Joining Leclerc and Nato among retirements was Campos driver Ralph Boschung, who suffered a failure and pulled over at Ste Devote.

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time/Gap
1	Nyck de Vries	Rapax	41'51.284
2	Johnny Cecotto	Rapax	9.834
3	Gustav Malja	Racing Engineering	10.415
4	Luca Ghiotto	RUSSIAN TIME	10.881
5	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	11.258
6	Alexander Albon	ART Grand Prix	11.901
7	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	13.627
8	Jordan King	MP Motorsport	13.970
9	Oliver Rowland	DAMS	28.993
10	Antonio Fuoco	Prema Powerteam	29.051
11	Nabil Jeffri	Trident	34.041
12	Sean Gelael	Arden International	42.732
13	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	43.430
14	Sergio Sette Camara	MP Motorsport	46.423
15	Robert Visoiu	Campos Racing	47.007
16	Louis Deletraz	Racing Engineering	53.179
17	Sergio Canamasas	Trident	55.677
Ret	Charles Leclerc	Prema Powerteam	10 laps
Ret	Ralph Boschung	Campos Racing	16 laps
Ret	Norman Nato	Arden International	28 laps