Browning proved supreme at both the original start and the late safety car restart, following a red flag for Aron’s incident, to stamp his authority on a race in which the Hitech driver never really looked properly threatened.
With the race ending under a safety car, Browning came home ahead of Dennis Hauger and Gabriele Mini to secure the biggest race win of his career.
At the original start, Browning got away brilliantly from pole position and defended the inside line all the way down to Lisboa as Prema’s Mini tucked into his slipstream.
As they braked for the tight right-hander, front-row starter Alex Dunne moved to the left to try to get around the outside of Mini – but found himself on the wrong line and ran off into the tyre barriers.
Following a brief virtual safety car period, Browning pulled clear to end the opening lap more than one second clear as the main battle appeared to be behind him.
Mini, who had a wild moment on cold tyres at Moorish Hill, was under attack from his team-mate Dino Beganovic – who slipstreamed past on the run down to Lisboa.
But Beganovic carried too much speed into the corner and, after locking up, ran wide into the tyre barriers, causing a second VSC period.
The race quickly got going again and Browning, despite losing one second on that VSC lap, soon extended his advantage as he steadily pulled clear, with Mini running alone in second behind him.
Hauger was the man on the move though, as he passed Prema’s Aron into third on the run to Lisboa on lap five, while Aron lost another place to Mari Boya a lap later.
Source: Autosport