Hamilton takes crushing maiden win

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