11/06/2006
NEWS STORY
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Lewis Hamilton put in one of the drives of the 2006 season to date to wrap up his second win on home soil this weekend. Starting eighth after winning yesterday's feature race, the ART Grand Prix driver put in a sensational drive to take the chequered flag from Felix Porteiro and Adam Carroll, as the Ulsterman made his second visit to the podium in as many days.
At the start third placed Alex Prémat stalled, calling for a second formation lap. As pole-sitter Felix brought the cars round, Clivio Piccione lined up in second ahead of only 20 other cars with Alex forced to start in the pits. The depleted field had been caused by Ferdinando Monfardini pulling out of the race following his accident yesterday, and the exclusion of Durango after their cars were found to be in breach of GP2 series Technical Regulations.
As the lights went out, Felix made a perfect getaway, followed by Clivio, Giorgio Pantano and Nelson Piquet Jr, who was quickly past the Italian and up into third position. Lewis meanwhile was beginning his charge. He was past Timo Glock at the start and soon found his way past Adam Carroll, sucking up the slipstream on Hangar Straight and slotting past into Stowe. He was now all over Giorgio but the Italian put up a staunch defence, just as Clivio was doing to the attacks of Nelson a few metres up the road.
Further back, Arden International's weekend turned from bad to worse as Michael Ammermüller took out team-mate Neel Jani, prompting the appearance of the safety car. By lap eighth the cars were clear to go again and Felix controlled the pace wonderfully. Lewis saw his opportunity to get by Giorgio and the pair ran side-by-side down the straight, with the Briton gaining the position into Copse. Next on his radar was Nelson who himself was still trying to pass Clivio. Into Maggotts Nelson jinked to Clivio's left, Lewis to his right, and they ran three abreast through the corner. Lewis came out on top of the audacious move, sweeping past both his rivals as Nelson slid off the track allowing Giorgio and Adam through.
Lewis quickly caught Felix, but the Spaniard was driving a superb race and held the championship leader at bay for lap after lap. Finally however, with 11 laps left, Lewis made it past. He took a look up the inside of Bridge but Felix held his line forcing Lewis to change ideas into Brooklands. Again Felix held position before Lewis pulled out a brilliant move up the inside of Luffield. The lead was his and he would pull out a second a lap untill the flag fell.
Behind Lewis, Felix held on for second position ahead of Adam Carroll who had stormed through to take his second podium of the weekend, Clivio in fourth, Giorgio fifth and Nelson sixth. Lewis scored the point for fastest lap, meaning he finished his home weekend just missing the pole position points which would have given him a perfect total.
1st Lewis Hamilton – ART Grand Prix: Hopefully it's just a continuation of my success and my drive to get to Formula One. I'm working my arse off not only to do the best job possible, but also to get that seat at McLaren; I really want that, and it's an opportunity that not many people get.
2nd Felix Porteiro – Campos Racing: I am very happy; at the beginning of the week I couldn't believe that we would be second and take six points, and we will see what happens in the next races.
3rd Adam Carroll – Racing Engineering: GP2 racing is so good, and we proved that today. The guys battled really well, drove really hard, and when the opportunity came around we were in a good position to make the most of it.
Note: Felix Porteiro was excluded from the Race 2 results by the Stewards after his Campos Racing car was found to be in breach of GP2 series Technical Regulations. The fault lay with the mounting of the steering rack, and is the same infringement which saw the ART Grand Prix cars of Nico Rosberg and Alex Premat relegated to the back of the grid in last year's Hungarian round of the GP2 series.