James Calado won the 2013 GP2 Series season finale in Abu Dhabi on Sunday afternoon to clinch third place in the drivers’ championship. Further back, fellow Briton Sam Bird’s fourth place was enough to win the teams’ title for Russian Time as rival Carlin suffered a disastrous race.

ART racer Calado scored his second win of the season thanks to a blinding start that rocketed him past the front row of Johnny Cecotto Jr. (Arden) and Felipe Nasr (Carlin).

Seconds later, Nasr pushed Cecotto into a spin at the first corner that caused huge evasive action behind that shook up the order, with feature race winner Alexander Rossi among those eliminated. Dani Clos took the most benefit, having bogged down on the grid, and surged his MP Motorsport machine past newly crowned champion Fabio Leimer at Turn 2.

Two safety cars interrupted the race, but Calado held his nerve to win by 0.7sec from Clos, having been as much as 3.7sec clear only for his lead to be negated.

“Just what we came here to do, well done boys,” he said on the slowing down lap after a result that lifted him to third in the standings.

Leimer kept Clos honest throughout the race, but dropped away to finish a distant third at the finish.

Bird finished fourth, which was enough to elevate Russian Time ahead of Carlin, although Bird reported his car was “very difficult to drive”.

After Nasr’s shunt at the opening turn, for which he got a drive-through penalty, Carlin teammate Jolyon Palmer dropped out of the top 10 after clouting a curb in the hotel section. He battled his way back ahead of Julian Leal, but was later forced out with a problem at the rear of his car. With neither Carlin car scoring, Bird’s fourth was enough for the teams’ title.

Daniel Abt concluded his best-ever GP2 weekend in fifth place for ART, ahead of Marcus Ericsson, Simon Trummer and Sergio Canamasas.

Results - 22 laps:Pos  Driver               Team/Car              Time/Gap 1.  James Calado         ART                 44m04.124s 2.  Dani Clos            MP                     +0.787s 3.  Fabio Leimer         Racing Engineering     +4.965s 4.  Sam Bird             Russian Time           +9.440s 5.  Daniel Abt           ART                    +9.957s 6.  Marcus Ericsson      DAMS                  +11.981s 7.  Simon Trummer        Rapax                 +13.188s 8.  Sergio Canamasas     Caterham              +16.432s 9.  Stefano Coletti      Rapax                 +18.117s10.  Julian Leal          Racing Engineering    +18.487s11.  Jake Rosenzweig      Addax                 +24.753s12.  Rio Haryanto         Addax                 +33.689s13.  Nathanael Berthon    Trident               +34.153s14.  Mitch Evans          Arden                 +34.485s15.  Gianmarco Raimondo   Trident               +36.123s16.  Rene Binder          Lazarus               +36.884s17.  Daniel de Jong       MP                    +37.471s18.  Felipe Nasr          Carlin                +40.271s19.  Vittorio Ghirelli    Lazarus               +41.869s20.  Stephane Richelmi    DAMS                +1m19.122s21.  Adrian Quaife-Hobbs  Hilmer                 +3 laps*                                           *Not running at finish                                                                  Retirements:                                                                                 Jolyon Palmer        Carlin                 17 laps     Jon Lancaster        Hilmer                  9 laps     Johnny Cecotto Jr    Arden                   0 laps     Alexander Rossi      Caterham                0 laps