SEPTEMBER 9, 2006

Lewis Hamilton is GP2 champion!

The FIA stewards have been very busy this evening at Monza with the question of whether to punish Fernando Alonso for his incident with Felipe Massa in the dying seconds of the F1 qualifying session on Saturday. They then went on to look at a different question relating to GP2 as there were arguments over whether or not race winner Giorgio Pantano should be given a point for fastest lap of the race because the lap was set when there were yellow flags around the circuit. This may not seem to be important but the fact that the second fastest lap went to Hamilton is vital because it Pantano's lap was cancelled the point would go to Hamilton instead and that would increase his lead to seven points. In the race tomorrow Nelson Piquet Jr could score only seven points but even if he did that he would lose the title because although he would have the same number of points and the same number of wins as Hamilton, he would lose because Lewis has more second places. Thus taking away Pantano's point would make Hamilton champion.

And that is exactly what happened.

Hamilton and Piquet will race tomorrow to see what the final outcome will be but the championship is over and now McLaren no longer needs to worry about Hamilton being distracted from the task of winning the GP2 title and we would expect to see him begin an intensive testing programme with the Woking team in the weeks ahead, so that the team can decide whether or not they want him to be Fernando Alonso's team mate in 2007.

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