Paul Ricard F3: Stroll leads Cassidy in first race of 2016

The Canadian led every lap of the lead except the very first one, having fallen behind Cassidy off the line.

However, he quickly recovered to retake the lead on Lap 2 and then slowly pulled away.

Although Cassidy slightly managed to close the gap towards the end, he had to settle for second, as the podium was rounded out by Hitech's George Russell.

The Briton passed Niko Kari at the start, the Finn making contact with fellow Red Bull junior Sergio Sette Camara, which saw the Brazilian drop to last.

Russell's Hitech teammate Ben Barnicoat ended up as top rookie in fourth, with Maximilian Gunther closely following him, the German recovering from eighth.

Motopark duo Joel Eriksson and Kari took sixth and eighth respectively, sandwiching the fourth Prema car of Ralf Aron.

Harrison Newey and Callum Ilott both made a couple of moves during the race to make up the top 10, the latter passing Pedro Piquet during the dying stages.

 Race 1 Results:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Gap
1	Lance Stroll	Prema Powerteam	-
2	Nick Cassidy	Prema Powerteam	0.769
3	George Russell	HitechGP	6.983
4	Ben Barnicoat	HitechGP	8.615
5	Maximilian Gunther	Prema Powerteam	9.202
6	Joel Eriksson	Motopark	13.040
7	Ralf Aron	Prema Powerteam	13.453
8	Niko Kari	Motopark	16.613
9	Harrison Newey	Van Amersfoort Racing	19.159
10	Callum Ilott	Van Amersfoort Racing	19.718
11	Pedro Piquet	Van Amersfoort Racing	20.747
12	Alessio Lorandi	Carlin	20.967
13	Mikkel Jensen	kfzteile24 Mucke Motorsport	24.008
14	Guan Yu Zhou	Motopark	24.465
15	Ryan Tveter	Carlin	27.726
16	Sergio Sette Camara	Motopark	34.218
17	Anthoine Hubert	Van Amersfoort Racing	34.428
18	Raoul Hyman	Carlin	36.478
19	Nikita Mazepin	HitechGP	45.829
20	Zhi Cong Li	Carlin	53.879
Ret	Arjun Maini	ThreeBond with T-Sport