Dominating the opening round in Valencia seems a long time ago to Nelson Piquet Jr, who was forced to take a back seat as🔥 Lewis Hamilton disappeared further of the GP2 Series horizon with two wins at Silverstone.

The Brazilian believes that he was in line for a certain podium, and a possible victory⛄, in Sunday's sprint race had he not been squeezed off the track in a three-abreast move at Becketts. Although he managed to get back on track, despite smashing through an advertising hoarding, he was only able to take sixth position, collecting one point while Hamilton, who had helped sandwich Clivio Piccione in the same move, took a maximum of seven for victory and fastest lap.

Piquet claimed that he was faster than Piccione, but was prevented froꦯm passing the Monegasque by the unusual lines being followe♕d by the DPR Direxiv driver.

"I'm really unhappy with the result today because we could have won this race," he sighed, "It was pretty difficult to overtake but, even though my car wasn't🦩 great, I was faster than P꧅iccione.

"It wouldn't have been impossible to pass him, but h🌊e was doing someജ strange things which held me up. After I went off, the car was worse, and I couldn't make up any places once I dropped to sixth."

Piquet now trails Hamilton by 22 points heading into the mid-season b💦reakꦉ, and will be hoping that his team can find something in the forthcoming Paul Ricard test to help him close the gap when the campaign restarts at Magny-Cours.