Race and classic pictures

Hamilton's breakout GP2 performance

It was on this day ten years ago in 2006 that Lewis Hamilton pulled off an astonishing and eye-catching recovery drive in the GP2 sprint race at the Istanbul Racing Circuit, which was arguably one of the major factors behind his promotion into Formula One the following year.

Hamilton had already won five races during the year and was leading the drivers championship from Nelson Piquet, Jr., but he spun on the second lap which left him running down in 14th place while Andreas Zuber was in the lead and set to win his first race in the championship.

All eyes were on Hamilton as he ripped his way through the field. In a series that hadn't been especially known for on-track overtaking at the time, Hamilton succeeded in rising to second place behind Zuber at the chequered flag. To this day, if you look up "best double overtake in GP2" on Google you'll find one of Hamilton's audacious moves from the race.

While he wasn't quite able to get the better of Zuber for the outright win, he did pass his main title rival Nelson Piquet Jr. and the points he picked up for second place together with a bonus for setting the fastest lap during the race meant Hamilton was perfectly poised to clinch the GP2 title in the final round of the season at Monza.

Hamilton's drive that day had the paddock alight, and anyone paying attention to that race could not possibly be surprise when McLaren signed him up to race alongside Fernando Alonso in Formula One the following season. And the rest as they say, is history...

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.