Callum Ilott took his fifth European Formula 3 win of the season at the Red Bull Ring, as championship leader Lando Norris saw his points lead reduced.
The four title contenders occupied the top four grid slots, with Ilott heading Prema team-mate Maximilian Gunther, Motopark?s Joel Eriksson and Carlin?s Norris.
Eriksson was the strongest at the start, immediately drawing alongside front row man Gunther and then sweeping round the outside of him at Turn 1.
He then attacked poleman Ilott, nosing ahead very slightly at Turn 3 and running alongside till the cars reached Turn 4 and Ilott?s inside line became superior.
Norris had the weakest start of the quartet, dropping behind the impressive Tadasuke Makino at Turn 1 and failing to reclaim the place throughout the rest of the lap.
As the race progressed the top five started to spread out, although Ilott stayed within sight of Eriksson before winning by 1.8 seconds, with Gunter a lonely third.
Makino, who since returning from his Norisring crash has been a points regular, had dropped over seven seconds to Ilott but had kept Norris half a second behind for much of the race.
On the penultimate lap Norris decided to push, attacking at Turns 2, 3 & 4 before pulling off a stunning move at the high speed left-handed Turn 5 to steal fourth.
Norris?s late move for fourth means his championship lead over Gunther is reduced by three points to 70, with the Briton needing a 75-point margin leaving the Red Bull Ring to be crowned champion.
On lap four of 25 the battle for sixth place between Nikita Mazepin and Harrison Newey ended prematurely when they made contact at Turn 3 when Mazepin went to defend the inside.
Mazepin retired immediately, while Newey dropped to the back of the field and ran a lap down till his Van Amersfoot Racing team called him to the pits to retire him near the end of the race.
Ferdinand Habsburg finished sixth, ahead of Mick Schumacher, David Beckmann, Guan Yu Zhou and Pedro Piquet.
Jake Hughes, who started last due to a engine change penalty, overtook seven people in two laps to move up to 13th, and then gained 11th after the Mazepin-Newey tangle.
Race 1 Results (25 laps)
1 Callum Ilott Prema 34m59.668s
2 Joel Eriksson Motopark +1.828s
3 Maximilian Gunther Prema +5.141s
4 Lando Norris Carlin +8.940s
5 Tadasuke Makino Motopark +10.119s
6 Ferdinand Habsburg Carlin +14.599s
7 Mick Schumacher Prema +15.598s
8 David Beckmann Motopark +19.574s
9 Guan Yu Zhou Prema +21.330s
10 Pedro Piquet VAR +22.568s
11 Jake Hughes HitechGP +23.249s
12 Ralf Aron HitechGP +24.046s
13 Jehan Daruvala Carlin +28.725s
14 Marino Sato Motopark +37.367s
15 Kevyan Andres Soori Motopark +38.517s
16 Devlin DeFrancesco Carlin +39.402s
17 Petru Florescu Motopark +1m10.427s
NC Joey Mawson VAR
NC Harrison Newey VAR
Ret Nikita Mazepin HitechGP
Championship Standings
1 Norris 393 2 Gunther 323 3 Ilott 285 4 Eriksson 283 5 Hughes 193 6 Daruvala 159 7 Habsburg 157 8 Zhou 119 9 Aron 110 10 Newey 106