Arden’s Niko Kari has claimed his first GP3 race victory at Abu Dhabi in what is thought to be his final feature event as a Red Bull junior driver.
Kari stole the lead at the opening left-hander of the race as polesitter George Russell focused on tackling Leonardo Pulcini from the start.
Russell dived to the left of the straight, with Pulcini on the painted strip, as Kari stuck to the racing line and went around the outside of the duo at Turn 1.
The Finn maintained a racing lead of around one second throughout to win ahead of Russell, who passed Pulcini at a virtual safety car restart on Lap 12 of 18 after falling to third on the opening lap.
Kari is the first driver from his country to win a GP3 feature since Aaro Vainio in July 2013.
Pulcini looked set to hold onto third until a dramatic rear-left tyre failure on the penultimate lap that promoted Haas development driver Arjun Maini to the final spot of the podium.
Macau Grand Prix winner Dan Ticktum finished fourth for the second feature event in succession.
Alessio Lorandi was fifth, with Steijn Schothorst sixth to break his streak without a points finish to ensure that all full-time competitors have scored during the 2017 campaign.
Dorian Boccolacci fell to seventh in the final laps but held on to the position to deny Anthoine Hubert, Ryan Tveter and Kevin Joerg, with the four finishing with 1.9s of each other, while Bruno Baptista missed out on a points finish by 1.4s.
Juan Manuel Correa finished 12th despite starting from the pitlane.
Renault academy driver Jack Aitken finished 14th, going wide at the beginning of the main straight on at least two occasions and having his front left tyre hit by a piece of front wing debris.
Honda-backed Nirei Fukuzumi recovered to 15th after stalling off the line and losing the right side of his front wing on Lap 2, making contact with the rear of Ferrari academy racer Giuliano Alesi.
With both finishing outside the points, this means the battle for the runners-up position in the drivers’ championship goes down to the wire in the sprint event. Aitken leads Fukuzumi by six points as both are set to start outside the top 10 with a maximum of 15 remaining.
Sauber development driver Tatiana Calderon was the last finisher in 16th, with Pulcini and Alesi failing to finish.
The race only had a field of 19 cars after Julien Falchero withdrew with apparent health issues.
