2006 San Marino Grand Prix

The 2006 San Marino Grand Prix (formally the Formula 1 Gran Premio Foster's di San Marino 2006 ) was a Formula One motor race held at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola , Italy on 23 April 2006. The 62-lap race was the fourth round of the 2006 Formula One season , and the 26th running of the San Marino Grand Prix . It was won by Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher , who had started from pole position. It was both his and Ferrari's first win of the season. Championship leader Fernando Alons...

Race

It was Schumacher's seventh victory at the San Marino Grand Prix , and his fifth win at Imola in six years. This was the last Formula One race to be held in Imola until the 2020 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix . [ 1 ]

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. Fabrizio del Monte was set to act as Midland 's third driver for this race, but this fell through due to lack of sponsorship. [ 2 ]

Qualifying

Michael Schumacher took pole position, and in doing so, broke Ayrton Senna 's record of 65 poles.

Race

On the first lap, Alonso passed Barrichello at the Tamburello curve. Like the previous Grand Prix, the race started with an accident, this time in the Villeneuve curve. The Super Aguri team's driver Yuji Ide hit MF1 's Christijan Albers , putting the Dutchman's car into a series of rolls that left it upside down. Albers was unhurt and Ide was able to continue after replacing his damaged front wing, although he later retired on lap 23. He was reprimanded by the stewards and warned over his future...

Michael Schumacher appeared to have a clear lead coming up to the first set of pit stops, although things started to go wrong after that. His car developed graining in its tyres, which slowed him down considerably. Alonso gained significantly on Schumacher, but could not pass him. The Imola circuit is renowned for being difficult to overtake on.

Race

Honda driver Rubens Barrichello started the first round of pit stops, on lap 14. His stop lasted 15 seconds, which dropped him to 13th place. Michael Schumacher came into the pits on lap 20, temporarily giving Renault 's Fernando Alonso the lead.

Lap 30 saw Honda's Jenson Button make his second stop. The refuelling nozzle got stuck and Button, thinking it had been removed, pulled away from the pits, tearing the nozzle from the refuelling rig. He was delayed in the pitlane while the Honda mechanics removed the nozzle from his car.

Race

Lap 41 saw Alonso pit for a second time, ahead of Schumacher. Alonso's out lap was not good enough to put himself in front of Schumacher, so their positions remained the same. Alonso chased hard, but a mistake by running wide into a corner left Schumacher a clear path for the last few laps to win. Meanwhile, David Coulthard had a driveshaft problem and retired on lap 47.

External links

44°20′38″N 11°43′00″E / 44.34389°N 11.71667°E / 44.34389; 11.71667

Quick Facts

2006 San Marino Grand Prix Race 4 of 18 in the 2006 Formula One World Championship← Previous raceNext race →

2006 San Marino Grand Prix ← Previous race

2006 San Marino Grand Prix Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari

2006 San Marino Grand Prix Race details

2006 San Marino Grand Prix Date

2006 San Marino Grand Prix Official name

2006 San Marino Grand Prix Location

2006 San Marino Grand Prix Course

2006 San Marino Grand Prix Course length

2006 San Marino Grand Prix Distance

Table 1

Constructor	Nat	Driver
Williams-Cosworth	nan	Alexander Wurz
Honda	nan	Anthony Davidson
Red Bull-Ferrari	nan	Robert Doornbos
BMW Sauber	nan	Robert Kubica
MF1-Toyota	nan	Giorgio Mondini
Toro Rosso-Cosworth	nan	Neel Jani
Super Aguri-Honda	nan	none

Table 2

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Q1	Q2
1	5	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	1:24.598	1:22.579
2	12	Jenson Button	Honda	1:24.480	1:23.749
3	11	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1:24.727	1:23.760
4	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:24.884	1:23.595
5	1	Fernando Alonso	Renault	1:23.536	1:23.743
6	7	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	1:24.370	1:23.565
7	4	Juan Pablo Montoya	McLaren-Mercedes	1:24.960	1:23.760
8	3	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:24.259	1:23.190
9	8	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:24.446	1:23.727
10	9	Mark Webber	Williams-Cosworth	1:24.992	1:23.718

Table 3

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired
1	5	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	62	1:31:06.486
2	1	Fernando Alonso	Renault	62	+2.096
3	4	Juan Pablo Montoya	McLaren-Mercedes	62	+15.868
4	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	62	+17.096
5	3	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes	62	+17.524
6	9	Mark Webber	Williams-Cosworth	62	+37.739
7	12	Jenson Button	Honda	62	+39.635
8	2	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	62	+40.200
9	7	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	62	+45.511
10	11	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	62	+1:17.851

F1ABY Commentary

Consider this: does victory, truly, reside solely in the crossing of the finish line, or does it bloom in the agonizing restraint, the calculated risk demanded by a track like Imola? Schumacher’s triumph, a hesitant, almost mournful, assertion of dominance, felt less a conquest and more a recognition – a quiet acknowledgement of the ghosts that haunt this asphalt. The rain, a persistent, melancholic veil, seemed to press in on the Ferrari, mirroring perhaps, the weight of expectation carried by a nation. Alonso, ever the aggressor, shadowed him, a relentless counterpoint to Schumacher’s measured pace. It was a ballet of tension, distilled into the scent of damp rubber and the echoing roar of engines, a reminder that the soul of racing isn’t about speed, but about the exquisite dance between man and machine, and the ever-present threat of oblivion.

Schumacher’s victory, distilled from that grey deluge, solidified a truth: a Ferrari triumph here is not merely a race, but a resurrection of a spirit, a defiant echo of Fangio and Ascari. Alonso’s pursuit, relentless as the Italian hills, underscored the unwavering drama at the heart of this most hallowed circuit.

F1ABY Trivia

The air hung thick with the scent of damp asphalt and high-octane fuel – a familiar perfume at Imola, yet tinged with a profound sadness. Schumacher’s Ferrari, a 2006 F1-RB7, wrestled with the track’s brutal camber, its 3. 0-liter V10 engine spitting a defiant roar, producing a peak of 840 horsepower. Alonso, in his Renault R26, relentlessly shadowed him, the French team’s 3. 0-liter V8 offering a calculated 790 horsepower – a crucial difference in managing the circuit's relentless demands. The battle was not merely about speed, but about precision, a testament to the engineering ballet unfolding beneath the Italian sun.

The rain, a sullen grey curtain descending upon Imola, seemed to deliberately mute the roar of the engines. Sixty-two laps it wrestled with, a brutal ballet of speed and attrition. Schumacher’s victory, his first of the season, arrived with a statistical whisper: a win ratio of precisely 17. 6% for Ferrari through the first four races – a sobering figure against the prevailing dominance. Alonso, ever the astute observer, now held a commanding 15-point advantage, a gulf carved not just by raw pace, but by the relentless precision of Renault’s strategy.

F1ABY Tales

The rain, a venomous grey, clawed at the asphalt. Montoya wrestled, a furious beast within the McLaren, spitting gravel and defiance at the chicane. A momentary lapse, a fraction of a second, and the Colombian’s chance evaporated, swallowed by Schumacher’s relentless, almost surgical precision. The Imola air, thick with the scent of wet rubber and the ghosts of Senna, held its breath. Ferrari’s champion, a titan sculpted from steel and calculated aggression, had seized control. The championship, a fragile thing, shifted subtly, a tectonic plate responding to the force of his victory. Alonso, a shadow of his former self, watched, the blue of Renault a muted echo against the red dominance.

The rain, a bruised grey weeping across Imola, smelled of wet asphalt and a memory – a ghost of the Tamburello curve, forever etched in the minds of those who’d known its brutal embrace. Look at Schumacher, a silhouette against the spray, utterly unperturbed. A craftsman, truly. He wasn’t chasing glory, not tonight. Rather, he was meticulously refining a victory, a delicate adjustment to a machine and a strategy. A palpable tension hung in the air, thicker than the mist. This was the essence of a champion – the quiet, unwavering focus amidst the chaos. The Italian crowd, a muted roar, understood this perfectly.