2006 Australian Grand Prix

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		Markus Winkelhock
Toro Rosso-Cosworth		Neel Jani

The race began with an unusual spin of Juan Pablo Montoya as he completed the formation lap. He lined up at the back of the grid, however Fisichella then stalled his engine on the grid, forcing the start to be red-flagged. Fisichella had to start from the pitlane, while Montoya reclaimed his grid position.

As in 2002, the race had a first-lap accident. Felipe Massa was the victim in an incident involving himself, Nico Rosberg and Christian Klien. The Williams and Red Bull effectively sandwiched Massa's Ferrari as the Brazilian attempted to squeeze through a gap too small, pitching him into the wall hard and out of the race. Rosberg returned to the pits without the rear wing. Klien continued the race unharmed.

These incidents called the Safety Car on the very first lap. Fisichella spun but continued, again in the Jones corner. Alonso passed Button when the SC was recalled two laps later, in the start/finish straight.

On the third lap, Christian Klien had some problem with his suspension and crashed the barriers near Clark Chicane, and destroyed his car. Klien went out walking, happily. This crash had left many pieces of debris on the track and the Safety Car went out again to help the stewards clean the zone. When the race continued, Räikkönen attacked Button and gained his place. Montoya tried that as well, though unsuccessful for many laps.

Vitantonio Liuzzi made an exciting pass on Michael Schumacher, by the Sports Centre turn.

Mark Webber led his home race for Williams

The race continued uneventful for another 10 laps when pit stops began with Montoya, Button and Trulli. Fernando and Räikkönen stopped, giving Mark Webber the lead of his home Grand Prix. A gearbox failure then eliminated him.

Another uneventful stint was run until lap 32 when Montoya touched the grass in the Prost turn, but managed to return to the track. Michael Schumacher also had the same grass cross, although the German champion could not make it back and struck the barriers. He himself said that his car was not easy to drive, and that the tires were not warm enough. This incident called the Safety Car for the third time. Many drivers used this SC situation to go to pits. Räikkönen entered just before Montoya, making a queue. Thankfully for the Woking Team there was not much delay.

On lap 35 the Safety Car was off and the race restarted. Alonso had a strategy to give an enormous gap with the SC and slow down the cars behind, and then blasted off and leave Räikkönen and Heidfeld with the trouble of Albers, creating a 3-second gap between the two leading cars.

The 36th lap called the Safety Car once again. Vitantonio Liuzzi had jumped to the grass, crossed the road, bumped the left barrier, crossed the road again and struck the right barrier near Whiteford, leaving his car completely destroyed. The race restarted on lap 40, and Fernando did exactly the same thing and got a little advantage from Räikkönen. After the incident Liuzzi blamed Villeneuve, saying that the Canadian had screwed up one of his best races.

Lap 39 brought another incident to the race. Tiago Monteiro abandoned due to a mechanical problem. Lap 46 took Montoya out of the race as he crossed the kerbs in the curve where Schumacher had had his accident. This caused the car to jump momentarily, causing an electrical problem which forced a total shutdown of the car, thus making him retire.

The Australian Grand Prix was not free of incidents in the last laps. On the very final lap, in the final 2 corners, Jenson Button blew his engine, causing Fisichella right behind him to be covered in oil and struggling to control the car. Button ended up stalling the car about 10 metres from the finish line. He did so deliberately, giving up a points-scoring position, to avoid a 10 place position penalty in the next race.

Alonso wrapped up his tenth career victory, while Räikkönen grabbed the second place on the podium and Ralf Schumacher scored what proved to be the sole podium for Toyota in the season, and ultimately, his final podium in Formula One. This was despite a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane. After the race, the stewards were busy, handing out a reprimand to Takuma Sato for failing to pay attention to blue flags, and a 25-second penalty to Scott Speed for a similar offence, albeit with yellow flags. The American driver was also fined $5000 for using abusive language during a post-race hearing.

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Q1	Q2	Q3	Grid
1	12	Jenson Button	Honda	1:28.081	1:26.337	1:25.229	1
2	2	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	1:27.765	1:26.196	1:25.635	2
3	1	Fernando Alonso	Renault	1:28.569	1:25.729	1:25.778	3
4	3	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:27.193	1:26.161	1:25.822	4
5	4	Juan Pablo Montoya	McLaren-Mercedes	1:27.079	1:25.902	1:25.976	5
6	7	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	1:28.007	1:26.596	1:26.612	6
7	9	Mark Webber	Williams-Cosworth	1:27.669	1:26.075	1:26.937	7
8	16	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1:27.796	1:26.014	1:27.579	8
9	17	Jacques Villeneuve	BMW Sauber	1:28.460	1:26.714	1:29.239	191
10	8	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:27.748	1:26.327	no time2	9
11	5	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	1:28.228	1:26.718		10
12	14	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Ferrari	1:28.408	1:27.023		11
13	20	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Toro Rosso-Cosworth	1:28.999	1:27.219		12
14	15	Christian Klien	Red Bull-Ferrari	1:28.757	1:27.591		13
15	10	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Cosworth	1:28.351	1:29.422		14
16	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:28.868	no time3		15
17	11	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1:29.943			16
18	19	Christijan Albers	MF1-Toyota	1:30.226			17
19	21	Scott Speed	Toro Rosso-Cosworth	1:30.426			18
20	18	Tiago Monteiro	MF1-Toyota	1:30.709			20
21	22	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri-Honda	1:32.279			21
22	23	Yuji Ide	Super Aguri-Honda	1:36.164			22
Source:[3][4]

Notes

• ^1 – Jacques Villeneuve was handed a 10 place grid penalty following an engine change before qualifying.[5]
• ^2 – Jarno Trulli qualified for the final session however did not completed a timed lap due to gearbox problems.[5]
• ^3 – Felipe Massa lost control of his Ferrari during the second qualifying session (Q2) after running over a curb through turn 11 and crashing his car into the wall. It also prompted the session to be red flagged for some time.[5]

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	1	Fernando Alonso	Renault	57	1:34:27.870	3	10
2	3	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes	57	+1.829	4	8
3	7	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	57	+24.824	6	6
4	16	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	57	+31.032	8	5
5	2	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	57	+38.421	2	4
6	17	Jacques Villeneuve	BMW Sauber	57	+49.554	19	3
7	11	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	57	+51.904	16	2
8	14	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Ferrari	57	+53.983	11	1
91	21	Scott Speed	Toro Rosso-Cosworth	57	+1:18.817	18
10	12	Jenson Button	Honda	56	Engine	1
11	19	Christijan Albers	MF1-Toyota	56	+1 lap	17
12	22	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri-Honda	55	+2 laps	21
13	23	Yuji Ide	Super Aguri-Honda	54	+3 laps	22
Ret	4	Juan Pablo Montoya	McLaren-Mercedes	46	Electrical	5
Ret	18	Tiago Monteiro	MF1-Toyota	39	Hydraulics	20
Ret	20	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Toro Rosso-Cosworth	37	Spun off/Accident	12
Ret	5	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	32	Accident	10
Ret	9	Mark Webber	Williams-Cosworth	22	Transmission	7
Ret	15	Christian Klien	Red Bull-Ferrari	4	Accident	13
Ret	8	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	0	Collision	9
Ret	10	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Cosworth	0	Collision damage	14
Ret	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	0	Collision	15
Source:[6]

Notes

• ^1 – Scott Speed finished eighth but had 25 seconds added to his race time for lack of attention to yellow flags.[7]