2006 GP2 Series Season - Season Summary

Season Summary

Nelson Piquet, Jr. started the season on high note, winning first race at Valencia ahead of two rookies, Lewis Hamilton and Adrián Vallés. The latter one failed to score in the rest of the season apart from one point for fastest lap at Barcelona. In a sprint race, Vallés was involved in a collision with Adam Carroll who rolled multiple times. The sprint race was won by Michael Ammermüller who had promising start to the season but failed to score during last six weekends.

Gianmaria Bruni and Ernesto Viso then shared victories at Imola, where Hamilton failed to score, after being black-flagged in feature race and therefore starting sprint race from back of the grid. He recovered well to win both races at Nürburgring, where Piquet had bad weekend. He had taken pole position but had big crash following car failure in the feature race. He also failed to score in the sprint.

Hamilton was on course to win feature race at Barcelona too, but he collided with his team-mate Alexandre Prémat on the last lap. The Frenchman went on to win with Hamilton second. Viso took second victory of the season by winning the sprint. Hamilton then went to win three races in a row, taking single Monaco event where Nicolas Lapierre and Olivier Pla were injured and missed some races. At his home circuit in Silverstone Hamilton won the feature and then the sprint, where he overtook Clivio Piccione and Piquet in one move.

There were few notable driver changes during the early season. Giorgio Pantano returned to the series with after missing first three rounds and Timo Glock moved from BCN to iSport between Monaco and British rounds. Both were serious contenders for race wins for the rest of the season and they shared victories at Magny-Cours. Glock also won at Hockenheim after overtaking José María López on the final lap.

At this point, Hamilton had massive 26-point lead over Piquet, but the Brazilian bounced back with perfect weekend at Hungary, taking pole, two wins and two fastest laps. Hamilton spun in qualifying and started feature race from back of the grid. He failed to score there but took second place in the wet Sunday sprint.

Piquet's form continued in Turkey, where he won feature race from pole. Hamilton was second, and in the sprint, Hamilton recovered well from early spin to take 2nd place, while Piquet had to settle for 5th. Andreas Zuber took advantage of his front row starting position and won the race.

Hamilton led by ten points before final weekend in Monza. Piquet cut the lead to eight by taking pole. Pantano beat both of them in the feature race and had set fastest lap as well. Piquet finished second and Hamilton third, so it looked like championship would be decided in final race. However, Pantano was deemed to have ignored yellow flags on his fastest lap so that time was disallowed, giving a point to Hamilton who now clinched the title. Pantano made fantastic start in the sprint and went from 8th to 1st before first corner, and went on to win the race. Hamilton followed and took 2nd, beating Piquet by 12 points in the end.