GP2 Champion Jolyon Palmer stormed to second place in the final Feature Race of the year under the lights at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi this evening, securing the Teams' Championship for DAMS as a result.

Starting from second place on the grid on the medium compound tyre, Palmer defended strongly from Felipe Nasr and DAMS team-mate Stephane Richelmi to hold his position through the first corner. Nasr squeezed past midway through the opening lap, but before Jolyon could counter-attack, the Safety Car was deployed in response to an accident further down the field.

Racing resumed on lap four, with Palmer immediately faster than Nasr ahead, and attempting a move into turn eight at the end of the long back straight. Palmer was unable to complete the move as Mitch Evans attacked from behind, but he was able to overtake Nasr into the same section on the following lap after running side-by-side though turns eight and nine.

Jolyon took over the lead at the start of the seventh lap, as Stoffel Vandoorne pitted to change from super-soft to medium tyres. Immediately making the most of the clean air in front of him with a series of quick laps, Palmer extended his lead over Mitch Evans to more than two seconds.

Jolyon stopped for super-soft tyres at the end of lap 22, with Evans making his stop at the same time. Jolyon rejoined immediately in front of Evans, and eight seconds behind Vandoorne. The fresh grip allowed Palmer to set the fastest lap of the race, at 1m51.185s, and post lap times more than a second faster than Vandoorne's, but the super-soft tyres could not maintain that level of performance and so Jolyon was second at the flag.

On the podium immediately after the race, Jolyon commented: "I'm pushing for [wins] all the time and the start wasn't bad but then I lost a place to Nasr on the first lap and I think that cost us a little bit. It took a bit of time to overtake him after the Safety Car and Stoffel [Vandoorne] made a good gap, then afterwards I think we just didn't quite have the pace today and to be fair Stoffel drove a good race. Me and Mitch [Evans] were pushing flat out but couldn't quite do it."

GP2 Abu Dhabi Feature Race Result
1, S Vandoorne, ART Grand Prix, 31 laps
2, J Palmer, DAMS, +12.1s
3, M Evans, Russian Time, +19.1s
4, F Nasr, Carlin, +22.2s
5, S Richelmi, DAMS, +28.0s
6, J Cecotto, Trident, +31.3s
7, S Coletti, Racing Engineering, +34.2s
8, A Pic, Campos, +34.4s
9, R Haryanto, Caterham, +36.7s
10, D De Jong, MP Motorsport, +46.6s