The 2006 British Grand Prix (officially the 2006 Formula 1 Foster's British Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held on 11 June 2006 at the Silverstone Circuit. The 60-lap race was the eighth round of the 2006 Formula One season.

Background The event was held at the Silverstone Circuit in Northamptonshire for the 41st time in the circuit's history. The Grand Prix was the eighth round of the 2006 Formula One World Championship and the 52nd running of the British Grand Prix as a round of the Formula One World Championship.

Ticket sales were rather slow, because the race was scheduled far earlier than normal and local Jenson Button had had a rather poor 2005 season. Also, the weekend clashed with England's first World Cup match.

This race featured the first ever pit stop to involve a woman. During a Midland F1 pit stop for Tiago Monteiro, ITV-F1's then pit lane reporter Louise Goodman was the left rear tyre changer.

Championship standings before the race Renault's Fernando Alonso was leading the Drivers' Championship with 64 points, ahead of Ferrari's Michael Schumacher with 43 and both Renault teammate Giancarlo Fisichella and McLaren driver with 27. In the Constructors' Championship, Renault topped the standings with 91 points, ahead of Ferrari (63) and McLaren (50).

Practice Three practice sessions were held before the Sunday race: two on Friday, both lasting 90 minutes, and one on Saturday for 60 minutes. The first session was led by Williams's third driver Alexander Wurz, the second by BMW Sauber's third driver Robert Kubica and the third, arguably the most representative session, by Michael Schumacher in the Ferrari.

Friday drivers The bottom 6 teams in the 2005 Constructors' Championship and Super Aguri were entitled to run a third car in free practice on Friday. These drivers drove on Friday but did not compete in qualifying or the race. Constructor Nat Driver Williams-Cosworth Alexander Wurz Honda Anthony Davidson Red Bull-Ferrari Robert Doornbos BMW Sauber Robert Kubica MF1-Toyota Giorgio Mondini Toro Rosso-Cosworth Neel Jani Super Aguri-Honda Sakon Yamamoto

Qualifying Saturday afternoon's qualifying session was divided into three parts. The first part ran for 15 minutes, and cars that finished the session 17th position or lower were eliminated from qualifying. The second part of the qualifying session lasted 15 minutes and eliminated cars that finished in positions 11 to 16. The final part of the qualifying session ran for 20 minutes which determined the positions from first to tenth, and decided pole position. Cars which failed to make the final session could refuel before the race, so ran lighter in those sessions.

Fernando Alonso became the first Spanish driver and the youngest driver ever (24 years and 317 days) to get a hat trick (pole position, winning and fastest lap in the same race). He fell one lap short of clinching a Grand Chelem (complementing the hat trick by leading every lap). He would finally achieve this at the 2010 Singapore Grand Prix.

Driver Constructor Q1 Q2 Q3 1 1 Fernando Alonso Renault1:21.0181:20.271 1:20.253 1 2 3 Kimi Räikkönen McLaren-Mercedes 1:21.648 1:20.497 1:20.397 2 3 5 Michael Schumacher Ferrari 1:22.096 1:20.659 1:20.574 3 4 6 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:21.647 1:20.846 1:20.764 4 5 2 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 1:22.411 1:20.594 1:20.919 5 6 11 Rubens Barrichello Honda 1:22.965 1:20.929 1:20.943 6 7 7 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 1:22.886 1:21.043 1:21.073 7 8 4 Juan Pablo Montoya McLaren-Mercedes 1:22.169 1:20.816 1:21.107 8 9 16 Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber 1:21.670 1:20.629 1:21.329 9 10 17 Jacques Villeneuve BMW Sauber 1:21.637 1:20.672 1:21.599 10 11 14 David Coulthard Red Bull-Ferrari 1:22.424 1:21.442 11 12 10 Nico Rosberg Williams-Cosworth 1:23.083 1:21.567 12 13 20 Vitantonio Liuzzi Toro Rosso-Cosworth 1:22.685 1:21.699 13 14 15 Christian Klien Red Bull-Ferrari 1:22.773 1:21.990 14 15 21 Scott Speed Toro Rosso-Cosworth 1:22.541 1:22.076 15 16 18 Tiago Monteiro MF1-Toyota 1:22.860 1:22.207 16 17 9 Mark Webber Williams-Cosworth 1:23.129 17 18 19 Christijan Albers MF1-Toyota 1:23.210 18 19 12 Jenson Button Honda 1:23.247 19 20 22 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 1:26.158 21 21 23 Franck Montagny Super Aguri-Honda 1:26.316 20 22 8 Jarno Trulli Toyota No time 22 Source: Notes – Takuma Sato was handed a 10 place grid penalty following a chassis and engine change after the Saturday morning practice session. – Jarno Trulli did not get any time in the first part of Q1 as a due to an engine failure.

Race The race was held on 11 June 2006 and was run for 60 laps.

Race report

The start brought no changes in the order at the front, but further back, Scott Speed pushed Ralf Schumacher's Toyota right in the path of Mark Webber. Schumacher and Webber retired on the spot, while Speed crawled to the pits and drove straight into the garage at the end of the lap. The safety car was deployed for three laps.

At the restart, Michael Schumacher challenged Kimi Räikkönen for second, but the Finn held on. Alonso gradually built a gap of three seconds to Raikkonen, and on lap 18, Schumacher was the first to pit. The championship leader looked to have the win secured, especially when his lead had grown to 13 seconds after the first round of stops.

Schumacher managed to leapfrog Räikkönen at the second round of stops, but never managed to get closer to his rival in the Renault. Räikkönen slowly fell into the clutches of Giancarlo Fisichella but held on to his podium finish.

Juan Pablo Montoya and Jacques Villeneuve finished sixth and eighth, respectively, and scored the final World Championship points of their careers.

Race classification Driver Constructor Tyre Laps Time/Retired Grid Points 1 1 Fernando Alonso Renault 60 1:25:51.927 1 10 2 5 Michael Schumacher Ferrari 60 +13.951 3 8 3 3 Kimi Räikkönen McLaren-Mercedes 60 +18.672 2 6 4 2 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 60 +19.976 5 5 5 6 Felipe Massa Ferrari 60 +31.559 4 4 6 4 Juan Pablo Montoya McLaren-Mercedes 60 +1:04.769 8 3 7 16 Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber 60 +1:14.594 9 2 8 17 Jacques Villeneuve BMW Sauber 60 +1:18.299 10 1 9 10 Nico Rosberg Williams-Cosworth 60 +1:19.008 12 10 11 Rubens Barrichello Honda 59 +1 lap 6 11 8 Jarno Trulli Toyota 59 +1 lap 22 12 14 David Coulthard Red Bull-Ferrari 59 +1 lap 11 13 20 Vitantonio Liuzzi Toro Rosso-Cosworth 59 +1 lap 13 14 15 Christian Klien Red Bull-Ferrari 59 +1 lap 14 15 19 Christijan Albers MF1-Toyota 59 +1 lap 18 16 18 Tiago Monteiro MF1-Toyota 58 +2 laps 16 17 22 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 57 +3 laps 21 18 23 Franck Montagny Super Aguri-Honda 57 +3 laps 20 12 Jenson Button Honda 8 Oil leak 19 21 Scott Speed Toro Rosso-Cosworth 1 Collision damage 15 7 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 0 Collision 7 9 Mark Webber Williams-Cosworth 0 Collision 17 Source:

Championship standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Driver Points 1 Fernando Alonso 74 2 Michael Schumacher 51 1 3 Kimi Räikkönen 33 1 4 Giancarlo Fisichella 32 5 Juan Pablo Montoya 26Source:

Constructors' Championship standings Constructor Points 1 Renault 106 2 Ferrari 75 3 McLaren-Mercedes 59 4 Honda 29 5 BMW Sauber 17Source:

Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

See also 2006 Silverstone GP2 Series round

References

External links

(archived)

Race reports Formula1.com (archived) GPUpdate.net Motorsport.com (archived)