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Driver changes

Given that the last round of the championship was some three months ago, a number of driver changes have taken place as the teams reshuffled their resources. Most of them see drivers move to the team that has signed them for the main 2010 GP2 Series in Europe. So Sergio Pérez and Giedo van der Garde moved to Barwa Addax in place of Max Chilton and the Virgin F1 tester Luis Razia. Chilton, meanwhile, washed up at Ocean Racing in place of American driver Alex Rossi, who found a berth at QiMeritus.

Elsewhere highly-rather Frenchman Jules Bianchi replaced Marcus Ericsson at the crack ART squad, with Ericsson taking a seat at the Super Nova team he will race for in Europe. Finally, Spaniard Dani Clos replaced Johnny Cecotto Jr at Trident Racing, Javier Villa was in for Rodolfo Gonzalez at Arden and Alberto Valerio replaced Roldán Rodríguez at Scuderia Coloni.

Qualifying

With so many drivers swapping and having to get used to new teams in the Abu Dhabi, it was somewhat unsurprising to see a driver who had kept with the same car between the first and second rounds claiming pole position. What was perhaps more surprising was that it was the previously underwhelming Frenchman Charles Pic, who nicked his Arden Dallara onto pole by just two hundredths of a second.

Second was the iSport car of Oliver Turvey, who just pipped his team mate and championship leader Davide Valsecchi in the closing stages of the session. Valsecchi shared the second row with the impressive Bianchi, while Javier Villa (Arden) and Sam Bird (ART) shared row three. Alex Rossi, the highly rated American youngster, had initially qualified 5th for Qi-Meritus, but a front wing infringement saw his times deleted.

Grid for feature race:
1 Charles Pic (Arden), 2 Oliver Turvey (iSport), 3 Davide Valsecchi (iSport), 4 Jules Bianchi (ART) 5 Javier Villa (Arden), 6 Sam Bird (ART), 7 Edoardo Piscopo (DAMS), 8 Giacomo Ricci (DPR), 9 Christian Vietoris (DAMS), 10 Sergio Perez (Addax), 11 Daniel Zampieri (Rapax), 12 Giedo van der Garde (Addax), 13 Fabio Leimer (Ocean), 14 Josef Kral (Super Nova), 15 Vladimir Arabadzhiev (Rapax), 16 Dani Clos (Trident), 17 Max Chilton (Ocean), 18 Michael Herck (DPR), 19 Marcus Ericsson (Super Nova), 20 Plamen Kralev (Trident), 21 Will Bratt (Coloni), 22 Alberto Valerio (Coloni), 23 Alexander Rossi (Meritus), 24 Luca Filippi (Meritus).

Feature Race

If Pic had been impressive in qualifying, he lost his way somewhat in the feature race itself. From the start, he bogged down and allowed Turvey and Valsecchi to sweep past on the opening lap. Those three circled in close contention for the first stage of the race, pursued by Bianchi and Villa, without too much happening. Pic lost out further after the mandatory pit stops, which were completed early in the race, and resumed in 5th place.

The two iSport cars continued to dominate, but nearly conspired to take each other out of contention after Turvey's tyre stop. The Brit emerged just ahead of championship leader Valsecchi, who went for a pass before his rival's tyres were up to temperature. The team mates banged wheels and ran off the track, but both managed to rejoin with Valsecchi ahead.

But Turvey wasn't finished, and he retook the lead with a brilliant pass around the outside of his team mate later on the same lap, to take a lead he would never lose.

Turvey held off Valsecchi for the rest of the race, to take his first ever GP2 win in an iSport 1-2. Bianchi, who had forced his way past Villa in a similar move to Turvey's one for the lead, took a podium finish in his first GP2 race, and Villa finished fourth, though only after the entertainer of the race, Luca Filippi, had retired from 4th on the final lap with technical issues.

Filippi, who had started at the back of the grid, also finished off Pic's race by bundling him off the road during his recovery drive. Behind Villa came the impressive Giacomo Ricci, who scored points despite being in the usually useless DPR car, and Alex Rossi, who also provided entertainment fighting his way up from 23rd on the grid to score his third points finish in three races this season.

A flurry of late crashes, including pre-season dark horse Giedo van der Garde (Addax), who lost his car on the dusty white line at the side of the track, and Marcus Ericsson (Super Nova), who was unceremoniously turfed off by Michael Herck, which promoted Herck to 7th, with Max Chilton (Ocean Racing) inheriting 8th place and pole for the sprint race.

11 Pic (Arden) +33.700, 12 Bratt (Coloni) +34.300, 13 Arabadzhiev (Rapax) +1:05.300, 14 Filippi (Qi-Meritus) +1 Lap, 15 Valerio (Coloni) +1 lap, 16 Kralev (Trident) +1 lap, 17 Ericsson (Super Nova) +3 laps, R Leimer (Ocean) 27 laps, R van der Garde (Addax) 25 laps, R Zampieri (Rapax) 23 laps, R Clos (Trident) 9 laps, R Vietoris (DAMS) 7 laps, R Bird (ART Grand Prix) 4 laps, R Piscopo (DAMS) 0 laps.

Sprint Race

The sprint race saw Chilton and Herck line up on the front row, then, with Rossi and Ricci on the second row and, by the time the race finally got underway, nobody on row three. Both Villa and Bianchi stalled at successive starts and were forced to start from the pit lane. Chilton, from his first GP2 pole, was slow away, and was swamped by Herck, Rossi and Ricci. The race became a hugely surprising DPR 1-2 on the next lap as he move past the American in the Qi-Meritus car to take up position behind Herck.

But the hopes from the DPR team that they might have been set for their first win in any GP2 race since Olivier Pla won the sprint race at Hockenheim in 2005 were shattered by runaway championship leader Valsecchi, who worked his way up to third early on and then picked off the two yellow cars in the closing stages, easing his way past Herck on the penultimate lap to take his second win of the year and cement his position at the top of the standings.

Herck was left to take second, with Ricci in third, a result which saw DPR jump up the standings despite missing out on the win.

Sergio Perez (Addax) finished fourth, after passing Chilton and Rossi, while feature race winner Oliver Turvey spent most of the race stuck behind Chilton before forcing his way past at the exit of the hairpin on lap 15. Chilton was left to hold onto the final point from Bianchi, who performed a spectacular, if meaningless recovery drive after his pit lane start to finish 7th.

Valsecchi, then, leads the championship by some 19 points over Turvey, and 25 points from Rossi as the teams head to the final two rounds of the shortened 2009-10 season, starting in Bahrain on February 26th and 27th.

11 Villa (Arden) +27.4, 12 Ericsson (Super Nova) +28.300, 13 Clos (Trident) +29.5, 14 Vietoris (DAMS) +30.9, 15 Zampieri (Rapax) +31.6, 16 Piscopo (DAMS) +32.2, 17 Filippi (Qi-Meritus) +34.8, 18 Valerio (Coloni) +39.6, 19 van der Garde (Addax) +1:03.6, 20 Kralev (Trident) +1:07.2, R Bratt (Coloni) 18 laps, R Leimer (Ocean) 16 laps, R Kral (Super Nova) 0 laps, R Bird (ART Grand Prix) 0 laps.

Drivers Championship -
1 Valsecchi 35pts, 2 Turvey 16pts, 3 Rossi 10pts, 4 Vietoris 9pts, 5 Filippi, Kral, Ricci 8pts, 8 Herck 7pts, 9 Jakes, Bianchi 6pts, 11 Villa 5pts, 12 Perez, Cecotto Jr 3pts, 14 Chilton, Pic 2pts.

Teams Championship -
1 iSport 51pts, 2 DPR 15pts, 3 Super Nova 14pts, 4 Qi-Meritus 11pts, 5 DAMS, Ocean Racing 9pts, 7 Arden 7pts, 8 ART Grand Prix 6pts, 9 Addax, Trident 3pts.