Hamilton takes crushing maiden win
Lewis Hamilton scored his first GP2 win in commanding style in the feature race at the Nurburgring today
Even a drive-through penalty failed to disrupt the ART driver as he destroyed the field, regularly lapping a second, or more, faster than the rest.
Front row sitters Nelson Piquet Junior and Franck Perera were slow away at the start, and it was BCN's Hiro Yoshimoto who led into the first corner from Hamilton. But the Briton was in no mood for hanging around and was leading by the end of the lap.
From there on, Hamilton disappeared into the distance, only losing the lead when he made his mandatory tyre stop.
He regained the position when all the stops had been complete, and with teammate Alex Premat in second, ART were back to their imperious 2005 form.
Hamilton's drive-through - for speeding in the pitlane - dropped him to second, but such was his pace advantage, he caught and passed Premat in just three laps. By the flag he had run up a 20-second lead.
The battle for third was intense, with Adam Carroll snatching it from Jose Maria Lopez on the final lap.
Carroll had a great fight with Nicolas Lapierre, who took fifth, and Piquet, with the trio running nose-to-tail for a large chunk of the second half of the race.
But there would be no points for championship leader Piquet, with a blown tyre sending him spearing into the tyre wall at high speed at the fast T10 right hander.
Ernesto Viso had a brief fight with Piquet, but lacked the pace to keep the Brazilian at bay. He took sixth. Seventh, and a GP2 best, went to Piquet's teammate Xandi Negrao.
Andreas Zuber was heading for his first GP2 points-finish when he suffered a blown tyre on the last lap, handing the point, and sprint race pole, to Yoshimoto, whose hopes of a podium finish were scuppered by a slow pitstop.
CLASSIFIED: Pos Driver Team Time 1. Hamilton ART Grand Prix 1:01:26.097 2. Premat ART Grand Prix + 19.642 3. Carroll Racing Engineering + 28.756 4. Lopez Super Nova International + 29.782 5. Lapierre Arden International Ltd + 30.073 6. Viso iSport International + 35.784 7. Negrao Piquet Sports + 36.426 8. Yoshimoto BCN Competicion + 40.197 9. Villa Racing Engineering + 55.748 10. Ammermueller Arden International Ltd + 56.638 11. Piccione DPR Direxiv + 57.179 12. Hernandez Durango + 64.519 13. Gommendy iSport International + 65.006 14. Zuber Trident Racing + 76.509 15. Pla DPR Direxiv + 77.218 16. Porteiro Campos Racing + 89.541 17. Glock BCN Competicion + 98.504 18. Di Grassi Durango + 1 Lap 19. Fauzy Super Nova International + 1 Lap NOT CLASSIFIED: Driver Team Laps Piquet Jr. Piquet Sports 30 Monfardini DAMS 29 Bruni Trident Racing 18 Valles Campos Racing 18 Filippi FMS International 11 Perera DAMS 0 Fastest lap: Hamilton, 1:42.782 on lap 14
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