Final GP2 race of 2015 cancelled after huge first lap crash

CLICK: Final GP2 championship standings after Abu Dhabi.

At least there were no titles still to be decided on Sunday, unlike their counterparts in the GP3 Series. Stoffel Vandoorne had already clinched both the drivers and team championships in the preceding rounds, and Alexander Rossi had similarly secured the runners-up spot in the former by finishing in fourth place in Saturday's feature race although his Racing Engineering still had a little work to do the same in the team standings to allow them see off the reigning champions DAMS.

Instead, we had been looking forward to an intriguing, too-close-to-call three-way battle for third between Sergey Sirotkin (Rapax), Rio Haryanto (Campos Racing) and Mitch Evans (Russian Time), and the question of whether Vandoorne could extend his newly-minted record for race wins in the championship in his last GP2 appearance. The answer to the latter question at least came early when the Belgian committed a rare error and stalled on the grid along with Rene Binder (MP Motorsport) which meant they had to sit and watch as pole sitter Alex Lynn (DAMS) smoked his tyres and only narrowly held off Rio Haryanto (Campos Racing) in the run down to the first corner.

Everyone got through that one safely at least, but then a battle between Marciello and Pierre Gasly sparked disaster on the exit of turn 2. Gasly lost the backend of the DAMS and spun; initially it seemed that he might be able to get back underway, but then the car rolled backwards into the path of oncoming traffic and chaos ensured.

The right rear of the DAMS was hit by Norman Nato, sending the Arden flying off into the safety barrier on the outside of turn 3. Along the way it collected a gaggle of cars in the process who had no where to go, and suddenly there was a four-car scrapheap against the wall consisting of the wrecked cars of Nato, Dani?l De Jong (Trident), Nicholas Latifi (MP Motorsport) and Sean Gelael (Carlin).

That wasn't an end to the carnage: Artem Markelov's Russian Time was also out after being hit by an errant flying tyre, while Rapax's Sergey Sirotkin was taken out by contact from Campos Racing's Arthur Pic in the aftermath. Fortunately, none of the drivers involved sustained any significant injuries.

There was no question that a red flag was required to sort out the mess and repair the extensive damage to the TechPro barriers. Lynn duly led Haryanto and the Racing Engineering pair of Jordan King and Alexander Rossi down pit lane to park and await the restart, together with the other ten drivers who has escaped unscathed and Vandoorne and Binder who were prepared to rejoin at the back of the field after their starting grid stalls.

The repairs to the barrier stretched on and after 40 minutes it was soon clear that there had been much more serious damage done than originally thought. With the day's schedule dominated by the immovable F1 Grand Prix it gradually became clear that there would be no time to complete the repairs and get the race back underway, and so the news was handed down by Charlie Whiting from race control that the race would not be restarted after all.

A plaintive Lynn was heard asking over the team radio whether he would still get the trophy for first place, but it was not to be. With the race cancelled after just a single lap, there would be no official result and no points awarded to anyone. It meant that Sirotkin would finish in third place in the drivers championship by a single point from Haryanto with Evans just three points further back, while Racing Engineering had clinched the runners-up spot in the team standings from DAMS and Campos Racing.

It was a strange and inevitably anticlimactic was to finish a long and gruelling and for the most part thrilling 2015 GP2 season. For the record, the order of the cars as they parked on pit lane had been Lynn, Haryanto, King, Rossi, Marciello, Evans, Andr? Negr?o (Arden), Nathana?l Berthon (Lazarus), Dean Stoneman (Carlin), Nobuharu Matsushita (ART), Oliver Rowland (Status Grand Prix), Gustav Malja (Rapax), Marlon St?ckinger (Status Grand Prix) and Sergio Canamasas (Lazarus) with Arthur Pic listed in 15th place. That is entirely unofficial however and won't be recorded in the series' annals.

At least some of those drivers - together with those involved in the first lap crash - will be back in action again at Yas Marina later this week, with three days of post-season testing scheduled to start on Wednesday in preparation for the 2016 campaign.