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Driver Changes

The driver changes were relatively minimal at the final round of the season, with the teams possibly aware that with the titles already wrapped up and everyone else concentrating on the return of F1, there wasn't much point trying any more. Virgin Racing's reserve driver Luiz Razia replaced Daniel Zampieri at the Rapax team, with Zampieri attending a pre-season test for FRenault 3.5 instead, while long-time GP2 straggler Rodolfo Gonzalez came in for Sergio Perez at the Barwa Addax team, indicating that the 2009 GP2 Series title contenders had completely lost the plot. Finally, the hapless Dani Clos reclaimed a seat at Trident Racing, in place of one-off returnee Adrian Zaugg.

Qualifying

GP2 veteran Luca Filippi secured pole position for the final round, his first pole since the Turkish round of the main series in 2007, with a last-gasp quick time in his Qi-Meritus machine around the extended F1-spec Endurance layout of the Sakhir circuit, pipping Round 2 pole winner Charles Pic (Arden) by under one hundredth of a second.

The iSport duo of Oliver Turvey and newly-crowned GP2 Asia champion Davide Valsecchi formed the second row of the grid, with former Virgin Racing tester Alvaro Parente impressing with 5th for Scuderia Coloni, one place ahead of Javier Villa in the second Arden machine.

Jules Bianchi could only manage 7th for ART Grand Prix, with series returnee Razia in 8th. Giacomo Ricci (DPR) and Alexander Rossi (Meritus) completed the top ten, but Rossi picked up a ten place penalty for an on-track altercation with Ocean Racing's Fabio Leimer, a penalty which promoted the second ART car of Sam Bird into the top ten.

Feature race grid:
1 Luca Filippi (Qi-Meritus), 2 Charles Pic (Arden), 3 Oliver Turvey (iSport), 4 Davide Valsecchi (iSport), 5 Alvaro Parente (Coloni) 6 Villa (Arden), 7 Jules Bianchi (ART), 8 Luiz Razia (Rapax), 9 Giacomo Ricci (DPR), 10 Sam Bird (ART), 11 Fabio Leimer (Ocean), 12 Dani Clos (Trident), 13 Michael Herck (DPR), 14 Christian Vietoris (DAMS), 15 Max Chilton (Addax), 16 Yelmer Buurman (Ocean), 17 Edoardo Piscopo (DAMS), 18 Vladimir Arabadzhiev (Rapax), 19 Josef Kral (Super Nova), 20 Alexander Rossi (Qi-Meritus), 21 Will Bratt (Coloni), 22 Rodolfo Gonzalez (Addax), 23 Jake Rosenzweig (Super Nova), 24 Plamen Kralev (Trident).

Feature Race

Presumably proving how little any of the proper drivers cared about the end-of-season event, the hapless Filippi actually managed to hold on to take the victory, securing the Qi-Meritus team its first ever GP2 Asia victory in the process.

The Italian had things pretty much his own way from start to finish, taking the lead from pole and holding off champion Valsecchi across the whole race distance to take the final feature race win of the season.

Valsecchi followed in his wake, but was never realistically close enough to make a pass. The pair even made their compulsery tyre changes on the same lap, but the order remained the same as they exited their pit boxes.

In what proved to be a somewhat processional race at the front, Charles Pic held onto third place, after losing second spot to Valsecchi early on. The Arden man had a sniff of taking second place back after Valsecchi emerged from his pit stop, but couldn't hold onto the place and contended himself with the final podium spot.

Alvaro Parente continued his impressive late-season cameo with fourth place for Scuderia Coloni, with DPR's Giacomo Ricci keeping his run of point-scoring finishes alive with fifth. ART's Sam Bird came through to finish sixth, with both Ricci and Bird picking up spots following a late race safety car, when Jules Bianchi and Javier Villa had a wheel-banging moment on the restart.

Bianchi followed up his contact with Villa with further contact with the second Meritus car of Alexander Rossi, leaving Villa himself and Edoardo Piscopo (DAMS) to claim the final points places. The result meant Piscopo would take pole for the sprint race.

11 Alexander Rossi (Qi-Meritus) +22.028, 12 Vladimir Arabadzhiev (Rapax) +22.260, 13 Yelmer Buurman (Ocean) +26.137, 14 Dani Clos (Trident) +26.749, 15 Will Bratt (Coloni) +28.031, 16 Josef Kral (Super Nova) +30.208, 17 Jake Rosenzweig (Super Nova) +31.799, 18 Michael Herck (DPR) +48.097, 19 Max Chilton (Addax) +1 lap, R Christian Vietoris (DAMS) 21 laps, R Plamen Kralev (Trident) 20 laps, R Rodolfo Gonzalez (Addax) 15 laps, R Luiz Razia (Rapax) 1 lap, R Fabio Leimer (Ocean) 0 laps.

Sprint Race

In the sprint race, the curtain came down on the brief bu diverting 2009-10 GP2 Asia Series, and it ended on a feelgood note, with Giacomo Ricci bursting through from 4th on the grid to take the first GP2 victory for the formerly backmarking DPR team since Olivier Pla's Germany sprint race win in 2005.

It was a fitting end to the season for the increasingly competitive DPR team, though sadly not quite enough to allow Ricci to overtake Luca Filippi in the fight for second in the championship, with the Italian Meritus driver taking the prize on number of second places after the two ended tied on points.

Ricci leaped ahead at the start of the race from fourth, helped by poleman Piscopo shedding a tyre on his way to the grid and having to start from the back, and led for the whole distance in what was another surprisingly quiet end-of-season race. Sam Bird took second into the first corner and remained there until the end, while Parente took third with a similar level of comfort.

Series champion Davide Valsecchi came through a slightly more exciting fight for fourth place, meaning that he scored points in all but one of the eight races this season, and ended with almost double the points of his nearest rival. Alexander Rossi took fifth with Javier Villa claiming the final point of the season.

The season is over, then, with an odd champion in Valsecchi, but the manner in which he dominated the series cannot be ignored. He will now look to follow up this title by impressing the F1 teams in the main 2010 GP2 Series, which gets underway in May in Barcelona.

11 Oliver Turvey (iSport) +32.196, 12 Dani Clos (Trident) +35.035, 13 Luiz Razia (Rapax) +38.628, 14 Christian Vietoris (DAMS) +45.567, 15 Max Chilton (Addax) +47.373, 16 Will Bratt (Coloni) +51.821, 17 Rosenzweig (Super Nova) +53.057, 18 Plamen Kralev (Trident) +1:12.250, 19 Charles Pic (Arden) +1:44.114, R Jules Bianchi (ART) 17 laps, R Rodolfo Gonzalez (Addax) 16 laps, R Michael Herck (DPR) 16 laps, R Edoardo Piscopo (DAMS) 0 laps, R Fabio Leimer (Ocean) 0 laps.

Drivers Championship -
1 Valsecchi 56pts (champion), 2 Filippi 29pts, 3 Ricci 29pts, 4 Villa 19pts, 5 Pic 18pts, 6 Turvey 17pts, 7 Bird 12pts, 8 Parente 12pts, 9 Rossi 12pts, 10 Vietoris 9pts, 11 Kral 8pts, 12 Bianchi 8pts, 13 Herck 7pts, 14 James Jakes 6pts, 15 Sergio Perez 5pts, 16 Piscopo 3pts, 17 Johnny Cecotto Jr 3pts, 18 Chilton 2pts, 19 Adrian Zaugg 1pt.

Teams Championship -
1 iSport International 73pts (champions), 2 Arden International 37pts, 3 DPR 36pts, 4 Malaysia Qi-Meritus.com 34pts, 5 ART Grand Prix 20pts, 6 Super Nova Racing 14pts, 7 DAMS 12pts, 8 Scuderia Coloni 12pts, 9 Ocean Racing Technology 9pts, 10 Barwa Addax Team 5pts, 11 Trident Racing 4pts, 12 Rapax Team 0pts.