2006 British Grand Prix

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.

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).

Three practice sessions were held before the Sunday race: two on Friday, both lasting 90 minutes, and one on Saturday for 60 minutes.^[3] 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.^[4]

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

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.^[3]

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.

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Q1	Q2	Q3	Grid
1	1	Fernando Alonso	Renault	1:21.018	1:20.271	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			211
21	23	Franck Montagny	Super Aguri-Honda	1:26.316			20
22	8	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	No time2			22
Source:[5]

Notes

• ^1 – Takuma Sato was handed a 10 place grid penalty following a chassis and engine change after the Saturday morning practice session.
• ^2 – Jarno Trulli did not get any time in the first part of Q1 as a due to an engine failure.

The race was held on 11 June 2006 and was run for 60 laps.^[6]

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.^[2]

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.

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Tyre	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	1	Fernando Alonso	Renault	M	60	1:25:51.927	1	10
2	5	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	B	60	+13.951	3	8
3	3	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes	M	60	+18.672	2	6
4	2	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	M	60	+19.976	5	5
5	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	B	60	+31.559	4	4
6	4	Juan Pablo Montoya	McLaren-Mercedes	M	60	+1:04.769	8	3
7	16	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	M	60	+1:14.594	9	2
8	17	Jacques Villeneuve	BMW Sauber	M	60	+1:18.299	10	1
9	10	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Cosworth	B	60	+1:19.008	12
10	11	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	M	59	+1 lap	6
11	8	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	B	59	+1 lap	22
12	14	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Ferrari	M	59	+1 lap	11
13	20	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Toro Rosso-Cosworth	M	59	+1 lap	13
14	15	Christian Klien	Red Bull-Ferrari	M	59	+1 lap	14
15	19	Christijan Albers	MF1-Toyota	B	59	+1 lap	18
16	18	Tiago Monteiro	MF1-Toyota	B	58	+2 laps	16
17	22	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri-Honda	B	57	+3 laps	21
18	23	Franck Montagny	Super Aguri-Honda	B	57	+3 laps	20
Ret	12	Jenson Button	Honda	M	8	Oil leak	19
Ret	21	Scott Speed	Toro Rosso-Cosworth	M	1	Collision damage	15
Ret	7	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	B	0	Collision	7
Ret	9	Mark Webber	Williams-Cosworth	B	0	Collision	17
Source:[5]

Drivers' Championship standings Pos. Driver Points 1 Fernando Alonso 74 2 Michael Schumacher 51 1 3 Kimi Räikkönen 33 1 4 Giancarlo Fisichella 32 5 Juan Pablo Montoya 26 Source:[7]

Constructors' Championship standings Pos. Constructor Points 1 Renault 106 2 Ferrari 75 3 McLaren-Mercedes 59 4 Honda 29 5 BMW Sauber 17 Source:[7]

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