Abu Dhabi GP3: Mazepin wins finale after Correa penalty

Nikita Mazepin won the GP3 season finale in Abu Dhabi as Juan Manuel Correa's victory bid ended with a penalty despite him leading most of the race.

Correa started the race from reverse-grid pole and led nearly the whole race, but was given a penalty for failing to respect the Virtual Safety Car time during an early caution phase and then dropped behind the Russian on the final lap.

Two separate crashes on the opening lap caused the VSC, including one that involved all three podium finishers of Race 1.

Newly-crowned champion Anthoine Hubert was side-by-side with Leonardo Pulcini and David Beckmann on the on Turn 7-8 long straight and hit Pulcini's rear left tyre, spinning the Italian into Beckmann.

Only Pulcini could carry on after the collision, and then there was another incident at Turn 11 as Pedro Piquet got spun around by Richard Verschoor and Jannes Fittje was unable to avoid the Brazilian and also retired.

After the restart, Correa had to defend from Alesi, Mazepin and Hughes, the former even stealing the lead once at Turn 8 only to drop back at Turn 11.

However both Correa and Alesi were soon out of contention as they were given five-second penalties.

Alesi dropped down the order but Correa kept Mazepin at bay until the final lap when the Russian finally made the move to claim victory on the road.

Hughes finished third but inherited second from Simo Laaksonen, the Finn passing Callum Ilott to claim his first and last podium in GP3.

Correa missed out on fifth by 0.1s with Ryan Tveter claiming the position as Richard Verschoor and Tatiana Calderon claimed the final two points-scoring places.

Joey Mawson and the penalised Alesi completed the top 10.

Race results

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time
1	Nikita Mazepin	ART Grand Prix	14
2	Jake Hughes	ART Grand Prix	14	1.3
3	Simo Laaksonen	Campos Racing	14	3.1
4	Callum Ilott	ART Grand Prix	14	3.7
5	Ryan Tveter	Trident	14	5.6
6	Juan Manuel Correa	Jenzer Motorsport	14	5.7
7	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport	14	6.1
8	Tatiana Calderon	Jenzer Motorsport	14	6.5
9	Joey Mawson	Arden International	14	7.9
10	Giuliano Alesi	Trident	14	9.7
11	Devlin DeFrancesco	MP Motorsport	14	10.7
12	Leonardo Pulcini	Campos Racing	14	12.1
13	Jehan Daruvala	MP Motorsport	14	14.7
14	Gabriel Aubry	Arden International	14	14.9
15	Sacha Fenestraz	Arden International	14	18.0
16	Diego Menchaca	Campos Racing	14	18.8
	David Beckmann	Trident		14 laps
	Anthoine Hubert	ART Grand Prix		14 laps
	Pedro Piquet	Trident		14 laps
	Jannes Fittje