Felix Da Costa Wins GP3 Season Finale At Monza

Antonio Felix da Costa ended a difficult GP3 Series season on a high with victory in a dramatic final race of the year at Monza.

The Portuguese driver had begun the campaign amongst the favourites after his switch from Formula 3 having regularly set the pace in pre-season testing, but prior to Monza had only made the points places on three occasions, with a best result of fourth.

He began this race on the front row alongside Mitch Evans, and got the jump on the Kiwi to take the lead at the start. Conor Daly held third off the line but was then hit in the rear by newly-crowned champion Valtteri Bottas under braking for Ascari. The Finn was handed a drive-through penalty, and eventually crossed the line down in 17^th having set the fastest lap.

This promoted Bottas' teammate James Calado into third and the Briton soon had the lead of the race. Evans fell back to third, but later used the slipstream effect to regain the lead from Calado. Calado attacked Evans for the lead at the first corner three laps later but hit Evans, putting him out of the race.

While Felix da Costa took the lead of the race and the victory, Calado was handed a drive-through penalty. He failed to serve it though, and after crossing the line in second he was given a 20 second penalty that dropped him to 14^th. Rio Haryanto was promoted to second place, with Nico Muller completing the podium. Simon Trummer, Callum MacLeod and Adrian Quaife-Hobbs collected the remaining points.

Behind Bottas and runner-up Calado, Nigel Melker held onto third place despite a point-less weekend. Muller's podium lifted him to fourth, one place behind where he finished last season.

Race 2 results – 16 laps:

Final drivers' standings after 8 rounds: