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 Sil🏅verstone.

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 o💯n 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 from passing the Monegasque by t𝔍he unusual lines being followed 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 difficu🦹lt to overtake but, even though my car wasn't great, I was faster than Piccione.

"It wouldn't have been impossible to pass him, but he was doing some 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 break, and will be hoping that his team can find something in the forthcoming Paul Ricard test to 𓆏help him close th🐼e gap when the campaign restarts at Magny-Cours.