Nelson Piquet Jr has made the perfect start to his season by storming to victory from pole position in the first race of the GP2 series, finishing 16.6 seconds ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Adrian Valles. The Brazilian controlled the race masterfully from the front after a strong start ahead of a slow starting Tristan Gommendy, which gave him some breathing space on the first lap ahead of a string of fast laps to build up a healthy lead over fast starting Valles, who was up to second from fourth on the grid at turn one.

Hamilton was slow to get off the line from third, dropping to seventh by the end of lap one, but was then able to push hard to fight his way back up the order.

By the end of lap four the order at the front was establishing itself, with Piquet pulling away from Valles, Ernesto Viso benefitting from his team-mate's retirement in third, Alex Premat, Jose Maria Lopez and Hamilton, who stopped early on lap seven to give himself some space on the track and try to move up through pit stop strategy.

Team-mate Premat was in on the next lap, followed by Viso, but up at the front Piquet was building up a big lead to take into his stop, which came and went in a flash on lap twelve. Further back Adam Carroll was in the wars, with his car looking like something of a handful. The Racing Engineering driver was all over the back of Fairuz Fauzy, who was in the Ulsterman’s Super Nova of last year, but just didn’t have the drive to push past.

Piquet came out in sixth place and pushed as hard as he could – it was the vital period of the race for the Brazilian, and he rolled off a string of quick laps while he waited for local favourite Valles to pit from first place. The Spaniard was in on lap sixteen, but a slow stop dropped him down behind the ART Grand Prix pair, who were third and fourth on the road but filling the potential podium behind Piquet with Olivier Pla and Carroll yet to make their stops.

When the stops were finally over Piquet was 13.8 seconds to the good over Premat, who had Hamilton all over his tail and looking for a way by, and Valles four seconds behind them. Zuber and Lapierre were next up, having a huge battle for fifth, which was resolved when the Frenchman got inside his rival and bumped him off track.

Meanwhile Carroll, with his car far more to his liking after his stop, was on a charge through the grid, fighting his way past Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi, denying the commonly held idea that the tight circuit would not allow overtaking.

On lap 30 the pressure Hamilton had been applying to his teammate paid off – Premat went too deep under braking into turn one and ran through the gravel trap, letting Hamilton and Valles through in the process.

The Frenchman was now falling into the clutches of countryman Lapierre, who blew past on lap 35, with Premat running wide one lap later, falling down to eighth and clearly struggling.

With two laps to go Carroll muscled his way past Xandi Negrao, but a slow run at the back of the circuit allowed the Brazilian to see a gap that wasn’t really there – he tapped Carroll into a spin to regain his position, and the Racing Engineering car was clearly worse for wear as a result.

But up at the front Piquet was serenely dominating the race, taking the chequered flag well ahead of Hamilton and Valles, who were followed across the finish line by Lapierre, who also claimed a point for the fastest lap of the race.

Rounding out the points were Lopez, Gimmi Bruni, Michael Ammermueller and Viso, who snuck past the ailing Premat to claim the final point and tomorrow’s pole position for race two.