to nail Race 1

Lewis Hamilton took victory in Saturday’s race at the Nürburgring after a sensational display which saw him overcome a drive-through penalty to win by almost 20 seconds.

The ART Grand Prix driver was joined on the podium by his team-mate Alex Prémat in second and Adam Carroll was an elated third for Racing Engineering. Lewis took the lead at the start after he and fellow second-row starter Hiroki Yoshimoto got the jump on front row sitters Nelson Piquet Jr and Franck Perera. Hiro was the first thr

ough Turn 1, but Lewis was in front by the third corner and never looked back. At the end of lap 11 Lewis made his stop, emerging third behind Adam and Xandi Negrao who had yet to stop. He was just a touch early releasing the pitlane speed limiter however, and broke the pitlane speed limit.

For the second race in succession the Briton faced a drive-through penalty.  On lap 21, Lewis, who was now back in the lead after Adam and Xandi had stopped, ran through the pits for a second time to take his penalty. He emerged two seconds behind Alex, who had inherited the top spot after a very early pitstop, while an  intense  battle  was  raging  behind  the  ART  Grand  Prix  pair  for  third  between  José  María  López, Nicolas Lapierre, Nelson and Adam. Nelson braked very late into the Veedol chicane, locking up his front  left  and  flat-spotting  it  badly,  but  doing  enough  to  pull  past  Nicolas  with  Adam  following  the Brazilian through and taking Nicolas around the outside of the Coca-Cola Kurve. As the battle for third raged on, Lewis serenely dispatched his team-mate and set off into the distance.

By now Nelson was struggling with his left front, the flat spot getting worse lap by lap as he locked up under  increasing  pressure  from  Adam.  With  just  five  laps  to  go,  Adam  was  through  Nelson,  and Nicolas made the most of the Ulsterman’s opportunism to also get past the championship leader. As the two sped off, Nelson’s front left suddenly delaminated, and the Brazilian ran across the gravel and slammed heavily into the barriers. Behind all of this action, Andreas Zuber was facing a similar problem to Nelson, as his right front was badly flat-spotted after a race of high aggression which had seen the Austrian fighting Ernesto Viso for seventh for much of the afternoon. With Piquet out, their race was now for sixth, but Andreas’ tyre was on its last legs and his imminent retirement saw Xandi move up to seventh while Hiro took eighth and pole for tomorrow’s race after a poor pitstop at one third distance had seen all his early efforts at the front come undone.

But the undoubted driver of the day was Lewis. Taking fastest lap en route to his first GP2 series win, the Briton punched the air and saluted the crowd. Alex followed him home, and on the final lap Adam caught and passed José demoting the Argentine to fourth, with Nicolas fifth and Ernesto sixth.

1st Lewis Hamilton – ART Grand Prix. 1:01:26.097 “It's a fantastic result for myself, and the team. Unfortunately I made a mistake and got a drive-through, but to get the win after the penalty is fantastic, and to get a 1-2 for the team couldn't be better.

2nd Alexandre Prémat – ART Grand Prix. +19.642 “For  sure  this  was  really  nice  because it was so long without champagne and podiums! I am really grateful, and I really want to push for a win as soon as possible.”

3rd Adam Carroll – Racing Engineering. +28.756 “The car was perfect, and I think I was good to my tyres so once the guys started making mistakes I just put the pressure on them and that was it – I just went for it.”