The GP2 Series night race at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi started with the two Racing Engineering cars on the same row of the grid, the fourth, but with different tyre strategies for the two drivers of the Spanish team. Alexander Rossi, who was starting from seventh position, was on the Pirelli 'red' supersofts while Jordan King, eight on the grid, was on the medium compound 'whites'.

As the starting lights went off Rossi had to avoid Marciello's slow moving car, and was initially overtaken by his team mate, King, recovering the position a few meters later so at the end of the first lap the two Racing Engineering cars were seventh and eighth. Soon there was evidence of the different pace between the supersoft and medium shod cars. The advantage was initially for the cars with the option tyres, and among them was Rossi, closing on the group of six that was pulling away from the field, while Jordan couldn't avoid losing some positions in the first laps, being overtaken by other drivers also on the softer compound, so he was tenth by lap 3.

Nevertheless, from lap 5 the Pirelli supersofts were quickly losing their edge and in just a couple of laps the situation at the top was changing dramatically. Rossi was one of those affected by the wearing tyres, losing positions to be down in 11th by lap 7, when he made his mandatory pitstop. He took on a new set of medium tyres to do the remaining 24 laps of the race. There followed a 'virtual safety car' period as a result of the contact between Nato and Latifi that forced the marshals to remove their stricken cars.

The young American driver for Racing Engineering was back on track in 18th position, 6th among the drivers who had already made their pit stop, and as soon as the race was on again, he went by Haryanto and started to fly, setting the fastest lap so far on the 11 lap with a time of 1:52.864. Three laps later, after passing Gelael and recovering two more places from Markelov and De Jong both who were out of the race, Alexander was now 13th, with just three drivers ahead of him having also made their pit stop.

On lap 22, Rossi recovered two more positions after two great overtaking moves, the first on Gasly, out braking him on the long straight of Yas Marina circuit, and then Malja, passing him in a spectacular fashion at turn 11.

From lap 24, the cars than hadn't yet made their mandatory pit stop started to, and with all the tyre changes completed Alexander was up to fourth. In the final laps, the young American was putting pressure on Evans, looking for a way to get third position, but he run out of time to pass him, crossing the finish line in a well-deserved fourth that allowed him to score enough points to secure the vice-championship ahead of tomorrow’s Sprint Race.

For Jordan King, given his different strategy, the race developed in quite a different way although with an equally positive outcome. The Briton driver for Racing Engineering was one of the drivers who got a better performance from the medium tyres in the first half of the race and, when the supersoft shod cars made their pit stops he was up to third, getting to second on lap 14 after Markelov, with whom he was having a very close fight, had to retire. With the Russian driver out of the race, Jordan kept the second position while managing his tyres and controlling the difference with Negrao, who was following him in third position. With 6 laps to go, Jordan made his pit top and got back to the track in 7th position with his cars fitted now with a set of supersoft, which he made good use of to pass Haryanto with 3 laps to go to gain 6th position, keeping it until the chequered flag despite the final strike back of the Campos Racing driver.