2006 Formula One World Championship (Alt)

This is a fictional account of an alternative version of the 2006 F1 season. For the real 2006 season, see the 2006 Formula One World Championship

The **2006 FIA Formula One World Championship** was the 60th season of Formula One motor racing. It featured the 57th Formula One World Championship which began on 12 March and ended on 22 October after eighteen races. The Drivers' Championship was won by Fernando Alonso of Renault, with Alonso becoming the youngest ever world champion at the time. Then-retiring seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher of Scuderia Ferrari finished runner-up, 13 points behind. The Constructors' Championship was won by Renault, which defeated Ferrari by five points.

The season was highlighted by the rivalry between Alonso and Schumacher, who each won seven races. Renault and Ferrari drivers dominated the field, victorious in all but one race: the Hungarian Grand Prix was won by Honda's Jenson Button, and the four second-place finishes not achieved by Renault or Ferrari were accomplished by McLaren. For the first time since the 1956 season, no British constructor won any race and only factory teams won all the races during this year (as in 1956). This season marked the beginning of the usage of 2.4L V8 engines in Formula One from the 3.0L V10 engines that were used in the previous seasons, which continued till the end of the 2013 season.

## Teams and drivers

The following teams and drivers competed in the 2006 FIA Formula One World Championship.

### Team changes

**BAR -> Honda, Jaguar -> Red Bull, Sauber -> BMW Sauber, Super Aguri debuts.** Three teams in the sport changed for this season, with BAR and Jaguar changing names under new ownership, while Sauber changed ownership, and one new team, Super Aguri, entered at the last moment. Jaguar were taken over by Red Bull, leaving Arrows, who withdrew at the end of the previous season. The Sauber name remained, although largely as a sentiment, as BMW had purchased 80% of the team, with Peter Sauber keeping only a 20% share. Honda, who already owned a 45% stake in the BAR team, completed their takeover of the team and changed its name to Honda Racing F1 Team at the start of the season. Super Aguri F1 also entered their first season after having problems entering. They received backing from Honda including technology and engines, due to them running Honda factory driver Takuma Sato.

**Williams: BMW -> Cosworth.** Williams introduced numerous changes for 2006, particularly changing to Cosworth V8 engines after they and BMW split. Red Bull Racing (RBR) had Ferrari engines, replacing the Cosworth power which gained them seventh in the standings in 2005. Williams and Toyota changed tyre suppliers to Bridgestone, due to Michelin's desire to supply fewer teams in the championship. Despite this, Toro Rosso, who under the Minardi name ran Bridgestone tyres, switched to Michelin in line with parent team RBR.

### Driver changes

**Felipe Massa: Sauber -> Ferrari.** Ferrari replaced Michael Schumacher's longtime teammate Rubens Barrichello with fellow Brazilian Felipe Massa, who moved from Sauber. Massa had previously tested with Ferrari in 2003.

**Nick Heidfeld: Williams -> BMW Sauber.** Massa was replaced at the newly renamed BMW Sauber team by Nick Heidfeld, who had driven for BMW's previous partners Williams for much of 2005. Poland's Robert Kubica took up the third driver's role at BMW Sauber.

**Rubens Barrichello: Ferrari -> Honda.** Barrichello moved to Honda, where he replaced the outgoing Takuma Sato.

**Takuma Sato: Honda -> Super Aguri, Sakon Yamamoto -> Super Aguri.** The Honda-backed Super Aguri team started the season with Sato and Sakon Yamamoto, an all-Japanese driver line up. Franck Montagny moved from his Renault testing role to become Super Aguri's third driver. His position at Renault was taken by the GP2 runner-up Heikki Kovalainen.

**Nico Rosberg -> Williams.** Williams promoted test driver Nico Rosberg, who had won the inaugural GP2 drivers' title, to their second seat alongside Mark Webber. Alexander Wurz, one of McLaren's test drivers from 2005, joined Williams as a third driver, alongside India's Narain Karthikeyan, who had raced for Jordan the previous season. Gary Paffett was promoted to a permanent testing role at McLaren alongside Pedro de la Rosa.

Karthikeyan's seat at Jordan, was taken by the 2005 Minardi driver Christijan Albers. Jordan decided to employ a rotation system for their third driver position. Minardi's other driver, Robert Doornbos, took up a test driving role at Red Bull. Vitantonio Liuzzi, who had shared Red Bull's second seat with Christian Klien in 2005, moved to Minardi—where he partnered his fellow Red Bull-backed driver Scott Speed. The Swiss driver Neel Jani became Toro Rosso's third driver.

Mika Häkkinen retired from the sport, and was replaced by Juan Pablo Montoya, moving from the now defunct Arrows team.

#### Mid-season changes

* After the United States Grand Prix, Juan Pablo Montoya announced he was moving to NASCAR for the 2007 season and leaving McLaren. The next day, McLaren announced that Montoya would be replaced in their driver line up by test driver Pedro de la Rosa, ending Montoya's five and a half-year F1 career since 2001.
* Robert Kubica was promoted to a race seat by BMW Sauber at the Hungarian Grand Prix, replacing 1997 World Champion Jacques Villeneuve, possibly due to Villeneuve's injuries after a heavy crash in the German Grand Prix. On the day after the Hungarian GP (7 August 2006), BMW Sauber announced that Villeneuve had left the team with immediate effect, with Kubica replacing him permanently for the remainder of the season. German Formula 3 driver Sebastian Vettel became BMW Sauber's third driver from the Turkish Grand Prix onwards, replacing the promoted Kubica.
* On 11 September 2006, Red Bull Racing announced that the team's third/test driver, Robert Doornbos would replace the sacked-Christian Klien for the final three races of the season as a result of Klien's string of poor results. For the races in China and Japan, Michael Ammermüller replaced Doornbos as third driver.
* Jordan announced a duo of new third drivers for two of the final races of the year. GP2 Series drivers Alexandre Prémat and Ernesto Viso took part in practice in China and Brazil respectively; Adrian Sutil, who had previously tested in Germany and France, again tested for the team in Japan.
* During the test at the Silverstone Circuit in September, GP2 Series drivers Lewis Hamilton, Nelson Piquet Jr., and Adrián Vallés performed test duties for McLaren, Renault and Jordan, respectively. Super Aguri's former race driver Franck Montagny also tested for Toyota.

## Season calendar

The Australian Grand Prix was held later than usual, to avoid a clash with the 2006 Commonwealth Games. For the first time, Bahrain hosted the first Grand Prix. Brazil hosted the last race, while Japan and China swapped their original dates.

In 2006, the FIA announced the Belgian Grand Prix would not be part of the 2006 Formula One season, since the local authorities had started major repair work in Spa-Francorchamps. The Belgian Grand Prix returned in 2007, when Kimi Räikkönen took pole position and his 3rd Belgian Grand Prix win in a row.

## Rule changes

### Technical regulations

* In an attempt to curb the increasing engine power levels of recent years, the maximum engine displacement was reduced from 3.0 to 2.4 litres and the number of cylinders from 10 to 8. At similar engine speeds, the change was expected to cut peak power by around 200 bhp, which would equate to around three to five seconds on lap times at most circuits. (Scuderia Toro Rosso continued to use 3.0-litre 10-cylinder engines with both rev and air-intake limiters to avoid the costs of re-engineering their cars in a short period). Initial testing indicated the new engines were six seconds slower than their V10 counterparts, but early in the season, it became obvious that despite the decrease in power, lap times were not far from 2005 figures; on some circuits, the fastest laps set this year were actually faster than the ones recorded last year, with the V10 engines.
* Some engine suppliers indicated early that their smaller V8s can rev higher than the 19,000 rpms normal for 2005-spec V10s. Northampton-based engine builder Cosworth had an enviable record of success with V8 engines. It made further history by becoming the first manufacturer to have broken the 20,000 rpm limit on track in December 2005.
* Tyre changes returned to Formula One in 2006. Each driver is limited to 14 sets of tyres per race weekend. This consists of seven sets of dry-weather tyres, four sets of wet-weather tyres and three sets of extreme-weather tyres. The thinking behind this is that the reduced engine size will offset any performance gain. The number of constructors who were supplied tyres by Michelin was down from seven to six while Bridgestone increased from three to five. Michelin announced they would withdraw from the championship after the 2006 season.
* All Formula One cars and entrants began to utilise mandatory 7-speed + 1 reverse semi-automatic gearbox configuration from 2006 to 2013.
* To keep costs down, the fuel tank capacity of all Formula One cars were mandatorily standardized to 150 litres (40 US gallons).

### Sporting regulations

* A new qualifying system consisting of three sessions of varying length was introduced. A 15-minute session was held first, in which the six slowest cars from that session were eliminated and thus set in grid positions 17–22. After a five-minute break, another 15-minute session was held with the remaining cars, and again the six slowest cars were eliminated and set in positions 11–16. These twelve eliminated drivers were placed in parc fermé, but allowed to modify fuel loads as they see fit.
* During a further five-minute break, the remaining 10 cars declared their fuel loads to the FIA. A final 20 minute session then decided the top 10 grid positions. Teams were allowed to run their fuel load low by making as many laps as possible, and thus improve their times as the weight falls. This was considered an improvement for TV audiences because teams needed to run as many laps as possible to lower their fuel loads. Following this session, the top ten cars were placed in parc ferme and required to refill their fuel load to the level of that at the beginning of the final 20 minutes. Starting with the 2006 French Grand Prix, qualifying for final session was cut short to just 15 minutes, making all of the sessions the same length, and the ability for drivers to complete a flying lap after the chequered flag drop now applied in the first two sessions as well.
* A loophole was detected by the FIA, in that teams could declare a large fuel load but on the out lap "leak", or use a large quantity of fuel to lighten a car and permit a faster lap. The FIA decided to only count laps that are within 110% of the driver's fastest time, and allow teams to top up with the amount of fuel used for those laps.
* Only one free practice session was held on Saturdays, for one hour, and it ended no less than two hours before qualifying begins, usually between 11.00 and 12.00, replacing the old system of two 45-minute sessions. Friday remained unchanged, with two one-hour sessions, starting three hours apart.
* The tuned mass damper system was used by several teams, notably Renault, during the latter part of 2005 and the 2006 seasons. The devices were located in the nosecone, and were particularly effective in corners and over kerbs to keep the tyres in closer contact to the track surface than they would otherwise be. After the French Grand Prix, the FIA announced that the system would be outlawed. This had a particularly significant effect on Renault, as the team had effectively built their cars around the devices, and had introduced them as long ago as the 2005 Brazilian Grand Prix. At the German Grand Prix the Renault team submitted one of their cars for scrutineering by the race stewards, who ruled that the devices were acceptable. The FIA launched an appeal against this decision, and on 23 August 2006 the FIA International Court of Appeal issued a statement upholding this appeal and rejecting the stewards' decision. The Court of Appeal stated that the system infringed part of the bodywork section (Article 3.15) of the Formula One Technical Regulations, which stated that any specific part of the car influencing its aerodynamic performance had to: comply with the rules relating to bodywork, be rigidly secured to the entirely sprung part of the car (rigidly secured means not having any degree of freedom), and remain immobile in relation to the sprung part of the car. The central argument was whether the mass dampers function as aerodynamic devices or as a part of the suspension system. The FIA reasoned that because the devices did not "remain immobile in relation to the sprung part of the car", they were illegal. But the FIA failed to explain how the damper, which was entirely enclosed with the car can be counted as bodywork when article 1.4 of the regulations defined bodywork as:

All entirely sprung parts of the car in contact with the external air stream, except cameras and the parts definitely associated with the mechanical functioning of the engine, transmission and running gear. Airboxes, radiators and engine exhausts are considered to be part of the bodywork.
Following the ruling by the Court of Appeal, the system was officially banned before the 2006 Turkish Grand Prix. In a later interview, Renault's Flavio Briatore named McLaren as the team who complained to the FIA.

## Results and standings

### Scoring system

Points were awarded to the top eight classified finishers using the following structure:

In the event of a tie, a count-back system was used as a tie-breaker, with a driver's best result used to decide the standings.