In a closely contested Sprint Race at Yas Marina, Charles Leclerc ended his championship campaign on a high, securing a seventh win of 2017 at Abu Dhabi.
Leclerc started the race from seventh on the grid after finishing in second place in Saturday's Feature Race following the disqualification of Oliver Rowland and Antonio Fuoco while Jordan King was promoted to reverse grid pole for his final race in Formula 2.
A poor start from King handed ART's Alexander Albon the lead while Leclerc had a strong start from the fourth row of the grid, clearing Luca Ghiotto and quickly slicing his way through the pack, performing overatkes on King, Nyck de Vries, Nobuharu Matsushita and Nicholas Latifi to move into second place.
With Leclerc having a clear pace advantage, the Monegasque driver closed in on Albon who still continued lapping in first place with the aim of securing his maiden win in the series.
With the laps whittling down and the yellow flags waving at the start of the final sector for a stricken Louis Deletraz, Leclerc was limited as to where he could try to overtake Albon, meaning that a last lap drag race down the back straight and an eventual lunge into turn eight sealed the win for the reigning champion, bringing about a fitting end to the 2017 season and an appropriate send off the Dallara GP2-11 chassis.
While Leclerc stood on the top step of the podium, Albon stood alongside him in second place while Nicholas Latifi ended his season on a high with a third place finish for DAMS.
Nobuharu Matsushita finished in fourth place in the second ART Grand Prix and was followed by Luca Ghiotto and Artem Markelov who headed up a Russian Time 5-6, allowing the team to come out on top over Prema Racing and DAMS in the Team Championship.
An impressive drive saw Oliver Rowland finish in seventh place after starting down in 20th while Sergio Sette-Camara rounded out the points in eighth place for what was his final race for MP Motorsport, with the Brazilian teenager joining Carlin alongside Lando Norris for 2018.
