Around 15 minutes into the race, both eventually passed the leader, with Dino Lunardi coming through to third and trying to catch Ellis. Despite the increasing pressure on a drying track, the Briton kept control of second before heading for the pits to handover to Mortimer with 28 minutes to go. The Matech team's pit-stop was slick, so Mortimer was surprised to join the fight down in third, with the Dodge Viper miles ahead and the sister Ford GT still in the lead.

It soon materialised that both Khan, now in the lead car, and Gilles Vannelet, at the helm of the Viper, had infringed at their stops and, knowing that, Mortimer drove faultlessly to stay within fighting distance of the pair.

As neither Khan nor Vannelet returned to the pits to take their penalty, Mortimer crossed the line in third but, with Khan demoted to third and Vannelet to fifth under time penalties awarded after the race, was duly handed the victory.

The performance was enough to secure Ellis third in the driver standings, with Mortimer fourth despite being two rounds adrift after missing the season-opener at Silverstone.

“This has been a fantastic weekend, we couldn't have asked for better, particularly as it's the first time Alex and I have raced together in the series," Ellis commented, "It's great to have our championship-winning partnership back on track and now we can look forward to the next round in Germany with four straight wins under our belts. From here, we will aim to keep on scoring points and podiums and, hopefully, that will help us get a shot at the championship title.”