the best start and went three-wide with Mortara and Bottas on the run to the Mandarin and took the lead on the exit. Mortara regained the tow behind his teammate and reclaimed the lead into Lisboa. Behind the leaders, Nasr ran wide and almost hit the wall on the outside of the bend but Calado lost rear grip on his car and spun into the barriers. As he came back across the circuit, Sims spun to avoid him and also hit the barriers, but on the inside. Further down the road, Webb ran into the barriers at Lisboa and became the race's third retirement. Despite extensive debris, the race continued under green flag conditions. With Abt, Bottas and Vanthoor battling over second place, Mortara extended a margin out front of over two seconds after the first lap. Abt defended second place on lap two, but on the run to Lisboa on lap three, Vanthoor, having passed Bottas the previous lap drafted past his teammate and into second place. Lloyd departed the race on lap two, becoming the fourth of the five British drivers to retire from the race. Bottas' teammate Merhi soon caught up to the pack and moved ahead of the Zandvoort Masters winner and into fourth place. With three laps to go, Merhi moved into third ahead of Abt but soon developed a problem, which saw him outbraked by both Abt and Bottas at Lisboa on lap nine, and later fell down the order to an eventual 22nd place classification. On the same lap as Merhi moved into third, Imperatori also exited the race at Lisboa and became the final retirement of the race. Mortara's pace dropped towards the end but he was still over two seconds clear of Vanthoor at the race's conclusion. Abt completed the podium, giving Signature a clean sweep. Bottas finished fourth ahead of Wittmann, van der Zande, Vergne, Huertas, Félix da Costa and Juncadella. Outside the top ten, Rosenqvist finished eleventh ahead of Nasr, Jaafar, Haryanto, Foresti, Muñoz, Kunimoto, Suzuki, Buller, Sekiguchi, Yamauchi, Merhi, Fong, Ho and Sato rounded out the 25 classified finishers. Main Race At the start, the Signature cars of Mortara, Vanthoor and Abt all made decent getaways while chaos ensued in the midfield. Muñoz ran into the back of the stalled Haryanto, and both those drivers were out on the spot. Muñoz's crabbed Dallara also took out two further