The race had been scheduled to run early on Saturday morning, though rain saw that initially delayed before being postponed.

It was instead run at the end of Saturday’s track action, the rain having disappeared and replaced with late afternoon sunshine.

At the race start, Mansell held fifth off the line and went three wide into Brooklands to take fourth.

Lindblad led at the end of the opening lap from Noel Leon and Matias Zagazeta, who’d hung onto third against Mansell’s challenge into Stowe.

In the pack, James Wharton ran 26th and Tommy Smith immediately in front of the Australian debutant.

On Lap 3, Mansell slipped back a place as Callum Voisin found a way through just prior to the Virtual Safety Car being deployed to recover a tyre carcass, once owned by Santiago Ramos, which sat in the middle of the track.

It was quickly withdrawn and racing resumed but only until Oliver Goethe and Max Esteron stopped at Copse.

The pair had crashed heavily at the fast right-hander, but were both able to climb out of the car.

Also out of the race was Sophia Floersch, who’d picked up damage on the opening lap.

The race restarted on Lap 8 Lindblad holding a clear if slender lead while in the pack championship leader Luke Browning came unstuck at Aintree after Tim Tramnitz clouted him.

Mansell found himself just in DRS range of Voisin at the end of the lap as the system was enabled, though quickly fell back.

Rather than looking forward, the Australian was instead the cork in the bottle as he came under pressure from Charlie Wurz, Alex Dunne, Nikola Tsolov, and a train of others.

Having successfully challenged Wurz into Stowe on Lap 10, Dunne repeated the move on Mansell a lap later.

The McLaren junior appeared to be instructed by his MP Motorsport crew to allow Mansell and Wurz through as he came under investigation for forcing the latter off track.

He did so but, as they headed down Wellington Straight, Dunne looked to regain the place from Wurz.

In doing so, he put two wheels on the grass as he attempted to repass the Austrian, tagging the Jenzer Motorsport entry and turning him sideways down the straight.

It ended his race in process while Dunne limped back to the pits with a damaged front wing.

The Virtual Safety Car was called for to clear the stricken car, which had stopped on the grass at the apex of Brooklands.

Wharton had moved his way up to 14th in the early stages as Mansell remained fifth with Smith sitting 20th.

When the race returned to green flag conditions, Lindblad held a near two-second advantage over Leon, who was in turn comfortably ahead of Zagazeta.

Mansell had Tsolov for company in fifth, the ART pair more than two seconds back from Voisin in fourth.

That closed as they began the final lap while Tsolov and Gabriele Mini scrapped over sixth – the pair making contact at Woodcote.

Down the Hangar Straight for the final time, Mansell hugged the inside line to defend from Tsolov, holding on ahead of a queue of cars to cross the line fifth.

However, a post-race time penalty for track limits dropped the Australian to 11th.

Ahead, Lindblad cruised to victory by 6.5 seconds with Leon second and Zagazeta third.

Wharton progressed to fine 13th on debut while Smith picked up a five-second penalty for track limits to be classified 21st.