Riki Christodoulou claimed a popular maiden victory in the Cooper Tires British Formula 3 International Series at Snetterton after the Fortec driver pipped championship leader Daniel Ricciardo to victory by just over a second in the second race of the weekend.

Christodoulou's win brings to six the number of different race victors this season.

The F3 rookie got the job done within three laps of the start, after pole-sitter and round nine victor Renger van der Zande fluffed his getaway from the grid and let Christodoulou nose his way into second place at the first corner, just behind the second Hitech car of Walter Grubmuller.

Christodoulou piled on the pressure during the first and second laps, then popped past the Austrian to claim the lead into Riches at the start of lap three. Thereafter he was home free.

"I knew I had to get a good start, and I managed to get ahead of Renger off the line,” Christodoulou said, “then two laps later I passed Walter down the start/finish line, and from there I was able to control the race."

Grubmuller further lost out when Ricciardo followed Christodoulou's example and popped past, following the Fortec man home all the way to the flag and a solid second place for Carlin Motorsport.

"If someone had told me this morning that I would take 30 points from today I wouldn't have believed them," he said. "We still don't have winning pace, but when you can't win you have to try to bag good points, which is what we've done."

A disappointed Grubmuller had to make do with third, just ahead of his team-mate van der Zande. The T-Sport twins, Adriano Buzaid and Wayne Boyd, were well in touch throughout the race to collect fifth and sixth, with Max Chilton, Henry Arundel, Jay Bridger and Victor Garcia completing the top ten.

Gabriel Dias made an excellent start to the race to lead the National Class throughout, with Daniel McKenzie second in class and newcomer Aaron Steele third for Litespeed.