Valencia 2006: Ammermuller wins, Carroll rolls.

Michael Ammermuller capped off an impressive opening weekend of the GP2 Series by taking a dominant victory in the second race at Valencia.

The German World Series graduate took points on his debut in seventh place in the first race and then took advantage of the reverse grid system to vault ahead of pole sitter Ernesto Viso and secure victory for Arden by a healthy ten seconds.

After setting the pace in the morning warm-up session, Viso was forced to settle for a still career-best result of second place in his iSport car, with Nicolas Lapierre making it a good day for Arden by securing the final podium slot.

The race was not without drama though, with the start being marred by a number of drivers failing to start. Sergio Hernandez, Felix Poterio and the FMS International duo of Jason Tahinci and Luca Fillipi failed to make it to the end of the first lap, causing the race to be restarted.

Once the race did finally get underway, Ammermuller reached the first corner in the lead, a position he would not relinquish throughout the 28 laps,

Things were much closer behind, with Lapierre storming up to third place from fifth on the grid, while the equally fast starting Nelson Piquet Jr vaulted from eighth to fourth place, the Brazilian looking to build upon his victory in the opening race.

Having struggled away from the lights in the first race, Lewis Hamilton was again swamped at the start, dropping from seventh to ninth, but was on a mission to storm back through the field, dispatching Jose Maria Lopez with ease and then moving past Adam Carroll and Adrian Valles, the former Irishman on a charge after starting down in 14th place.

However, both his and Valles promising run came to a spectacular end soon after when Carroll tried to slip past the Spaniard, who was struggling for grip, but making contact instead and causing Carroll to barrel roll into the gravel trap.

Carroll emerged unscathed from the incident but it would leave him going away from the first round without any points.

Up at the front Ammermuller crossed the line with a massive lead of Viso, Lapierre and Piquet, the Brazilian taking his spot at the top of the championship following the two races in Spain.

Gimmi Bruni grabbed a strong fifth place for the new Trident outfit, just ahead of Hamilton who was unable to make any more ground upon the competition following his poor getaway.

Trident also had reason to celebrate when Andreas Zuber secured the fastest lap of the race, but the bonus point fell to Piquet Jr instead as the Austrian aborted his first start and therefore was ineligible to claim his reward.

Piquet leads the championship on 16 points, with Lapierre second on ten points and Hamilton capping off a strong debut weekend in the GP2 series by emerging third on nine points.