Jarl Teien had an outside chance of the title but Loic Meunier and TOP were too good under the lights in Abu Dhabi.
Owen McGaugie, standing in for Szymon Frelik, took pole position by two tenths of a second from Maciej Mlynek, with Loic Meunier 3rd, Carlos Martin 4th and Teien in 5th place on the grid.
From the get-go, it was clear the TOP cars had superior pace to Teien, and the top 3 motored away whilst Jarl battled with Carlos Martin in the early laps, before Martin eventually shook off the Norwegian and chased down the leading three drivers. However, such was the pace of the leading trio early on, they easily gapped the THR driver and after just 7 laps, the gap was over 5 seconds.
Teien pitted early for medium compound tyres, but it was clear once again there would be a divergence on strategy. McGaugie also pitted early but put on the hard tyres, so it was difficult to tell whether he would be continuing on the two or three stop strategy.
Further back, Tom Stevens had started P16 and started the race on mediums; he was dragging himself into contention on a counter strategy. Jan Granqvist, too, was in a good position and by the time Jarl Teien pitted the Finnish driver was ahead of him.
Carlos Martin though was driving superbly, and he made his way through the leading gaggle of cars on the two stop strategy of Granqvist, Mlynek and Meunier – Martin was on the medium tyres for the final stint and it made the difference for the Spaniard.
In the end, Martin took a deserved final round victory for TOP, with Meunier 2nd and Mlynek 3rd. This was more than enough for Loic to secure the driver’s title – in the end it was fairly comfortable for the Frenchman.
After the race, Carlos said “I am extremely happy for the win. I thought the race was over after some contacts with Jarl, I thought any contention for the upper spots was was not possible, but I managed to go through the field.
It was a constant effort that paid off in the last race of the season, could have happened before but just happened here. Super duper happy.”
Granqvist ended the race in 4th, and had this to say – “Good fights, good championship, though driving itself felt like a chore due to overpowered DRS leaching.”
“With McGaugie in 5th place – he was actually on a 3 stop strategy – Tom Stevens came through ahead of his team mate in 6th and 7th. Norbert Jakab dragged the Stax machine to P8 in an excellent drive on his Superleague debut.
After the race, Norbert said “I performed way over my expectations in my debut in SL, My primary goal was achieving top 15 in the race, which I doubted before my final run in Q, as I was sandbagging, but my final lap was a banger, and my PB gave me a P9 on the grid. After I finally learnt how to do a good race start thanks to Jan Granqvist a day before, I could improve 2 positions at the race start, and from that point on I knew I needed someone’s DRS all the time not to fall back, so I followed the leader group.
After the pit stops I lost their DRS, but others caught me, which I could utilise. Wach gave me a really good pace in the final 20 or so laps, and in the end I could overtake him successfully on the last lap. I’m really satisfied with my results, and probably could prove I can be someone to watch out next season. With the potential step up of True North Motorsport to SL I can’t wait to continue the work with Carter and my future teammate, who’s existence will be a secret for a few days/weeks still.”
The season may have wrapped but there’s still some talking points before 2026. It’s GPVWC day on Saturday, and we’re still to find out which teams will make it to the grid.
