JUNE 11, 2006

Lewis, Carroll in wonderland

The two GP2 races at Silverstone turned out to be Lewis Hamilton benefit events with two very classy performances from the rising British star. The ART team clearly has a better car than the opposition but Hamilton's real achievement is not just to win but also to completely humiliate his team mate Alexandre Premat, who is in his second season of GP2 and raced strongly last year against his previous team mate Nico Rosberg.

In Saturday's race Hamilton took the lead from poleman Adam Carroll and despite a number of Safety Cars he remained ahead. Timo Glock had a great race to finish second in his first event with the iSport team while Carroll had to settle for third, ahead of ersthwile championship leader Nelson Piquet Jr.

On Sunday the top eight finishers were reversed on the grid and so Hamilton had to work his way to the front. He did so with considerable style, dispensing with a feisty Giorgio Pantano with an exquisitely timed move at a restart and then pulling off a wonderful move to pass both Clivio Piccione and Piquet at the same time. The cars went three abreast with Hamilton on the inside, Piccione braked to get out of an accident and Piquet overcooked it and went off and demolished an advertising hoarding on the infield. That left Hamilton with only Felix Porteiro ahead of him and he quickly dealt with the Spaniard and pulled away to win a fabulous victory.

Adam Carroll then challenged Porteiro for second but the Spaniard held him off until the finish. Later, however, the car was thrown out because of illegal suspension settings, giving GP2 reporters the perfect headline.