Kobi Williams takes the opening Heat victory at Winton

Kobi Williams has taken out the first Formula Ford Stars & Renegades Series victory at Winton, narrowly defeating pole-sitter Joe Fawcett in an action-packed affair.

Williams made the best jump from the rolling start to lead Fawcett into Turn 1, but chaos ensured when Jack Johnson was spun in the mid-pack.

The battle for the lead between Williams, Fawcett and Evennett proved thrilling during the opening stage of the race. Fawcett made a move on lap 2 on the outside of Williams at Turn 1, but the latter held firm to exit the battle first two corners later as Evennett challenged for second.

The top three had built a 1s margin back to the duelling trio of Will Lowing, Jamie Rowe and Fraser Hie. Lowing went off at Turn 5 opening the door for Hie to move into fifth ahead of Rowe after a failed pass led to a swap of positions.

It wasn’t only Lowing leaving the track at Turn 5, but he was followed by Kaleb Balek, Giuseppe Imbrogno and Jack Johnson. Balek stopped on track exiting Turn 10 leading to a safety car, while Imbrogno entered the pits to retire.

Prior to the safety car, Fawcett took the lead at Turn 1 from Williams, but the two swapped positions just before the yellow flags were waved.

Adding to the chaos, Lowing had a trip down the escape road at Turn 10 just prior to the field being neutralised.

Williams was able to hold off the advances of Fawcett to take the win by 0.116s from Evennett, Rowe and Hie, who completed the top five.

Hunter Salvatore rose through the field to take seventh from Marcos Ambrose Motorsport’s Brad James, a recovering Lowing, Ethan Fitzgerald and Tabitha Ambrose.

The next event for the Formula Ford Stars & Renegades Series is the 30-minute Feature Race at 3:20pm AEDT live on SBS On-demand, Fox Sports and Kayo.