In a strategy-driven race at the Yas Marina Circuit, Oliver Rowland sealed a third victory of 2017 with a dominant drive for DAMS in Abu Dhabi.
Russian Time's Artem Markelov started the race from pole position while Rowland started down in fourth place, with the pair being separated on the grid by Nyck de Vries and Antonio Fuoco.
While Markelov, Fuoco and Rowland started the race on the supersoft tyre, there was a split strategy at the front of the field, with de Vries and reigning champion Charles Leclerc opting to start on the soft compound tyre.
For the opening phase of the race Markelov held the lead, closely followed by de Vries and Rowland after Fuoco had a poor start from third. With the suersoft tyre having high degredation rates however, the Russian racer was forced to pit on lap 7, with the rest of the red-striped runners following him in.
De Vries emerged in the lead for Racing Engineering while Leclerc was running in second after fighting through the field after starting from sixth, going onto eventually pass the Dutchman in front of him and lead for much of the second half of the race.
When Leclerc and de Vries pitted for their compulsory tyre change, Rowland was the net-leader of the race and moved into first place.
Despite having the pace on the faster but less durable supersofts in third, Leclerc was unable to hunt down his former championship rival which handed Rowland one of the most dominant wins of his career so far.
Markelov secured the second step of the podium, being unable to convert his first Formula 2 pole position into a win. Fuoco stood on the final step for Prema Racing with a final lap pass on Leclerc who came home in fourth.
Luca Ghiotto finished in fifth in the second Russian Time car while de Vries finished in sixth, Nicholas Latifi finished in seventh and Nobuharu Matsushita finished in eighth, securing reverse grid pole for Sunday's Sprint Race.
Alexander Albon finished in ninth place in the second ART while Jordan King rounded out the points paying positions in tenth in what will be his penultimate race in the series for MP Motorsport.
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