The Australian sat behind Carlin team-mate Max Chilton for most of the race, before beating him with a gutsy move around the outside at the super-fast Stowe corner to grab the win in the late stages.
"We stayed in formation for most of the race, but my car came on a bit better towards mid-race and I saw him have a few problems with oversteer," said Ricciardo. "But I managed to get alongside through Maggots/Becketts and run side by side through a couple of corners. It was fun and clean."
A lap later Fortec's Riki Christodoulou feinted left, before making a superb lunge down the inside of the Dallara-Volkswagen at the Abbey chicane to steal second as a demoralised Chilton's challenge faded. The double poleman just held off the lurking Raikkonen Robertson car of Daisuke Nakajima to clinch the final podium spot.
An aggressive-looking Nick Tandy showed yet more improvement with his Mygale-Mercedes, to take fifth place and a new lap record with the race's fastest lap at 1m41.282s.
The JTR driver took advantage of a storming start and some typically opportunistic racecraft to rise from 10th on the grid to sixth by the end of the third lap.
Henry Arundel (Carlin) rounded out the top six, ahead of Hitech's Walter Grubmuller, whose race one-winning team-mate Renger van der Zande ran third early on, before losing out to Christodoulou's brave braking into the Club chicane at mid-distance, and fading to 12th late on with an apparent loss of power in his Dallara-Mercedes.
Gabriel Dias (T-Sport) completed a National Class double by mugging Daniel McKenzie on the last lap of the race and thus slightly reducing a substantial points disadvantage to his Fortec rival.
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