GP3: Niederhauser excluded, loses race 2 win
CLICK: Revised GP3 race 2 results from Abu Dhabi and final championship standings.
Status Grand Prix driver Nick Yelloly has been handed his first win in the GP3 Series, after being declared the winner of Sunday's GP3 race at Abu Dhabi following the exclusion of Arden's Patrick Niederhauser.
Yelloly had been unsuccessful in trying to fend off Niederhauser going into the first corner of the 14-lap race. Unable to do anything to reverse the situation, Yelloly then ended up following the Swiss driver from there all the way through to the chequered flag.
However after the final podium celebrations of the 2014 season were completed, word came down that Niederhauser was to be stripped of what would have been his second win of the season.
Post-race technical scrutineering had determined that the #5 car did not conform to the specifications governing the rear upper wing angle on the car, and as a result Neiderhauser was excluded from the race results for a breach of Article 4.3.4 of the GP3 Series Technical Regulations.
That promoted Yelloly into first place for the first time, with Carlin duo Alex Lynn and Emil Bernstorff also boosted to second and third respectively ahead of ART's Dino Zamparelli who netted fourth place.
That means that in the revised team standings, Carlins' margin of victory was boosted to 19 points. The amended results did nothing to affect the runners-up position in the drivers championship since neither Dean Stoneman nor Marvin Kirchh?fer finished in the points. Stoneman still clinches second place in the standings by two points over the German.
Also announced after the race was a penalty for Jenzer Motorsport's Kevin Ceccon for exceeding track limits and gaining an advantage at turn 5 during the race, after he made up three places with te move but was subsequently only able to hand two of them back.
Acknowledging that Ceccon had done his best to rectify the situation, the race stewards settled on a simple one-place demotion in the standings which meant that Ceccon dropped from what would have been fifth place after Niederhauer's exclusion, to sixth position behind Koiranen GP's Jimmy Eriksson
See revised GP3 race 2 results from Abu Dhabi and final championship standings.
