2006 Bahrain Grand Prix

The bottom six 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

Toyota driver Jarno Trulli before the start of the race.

The race was the first run under the new 2006 qualifying rules, in which the one-hour session is split into three 'knock out' parts. The first part eliminated Kimi Räikkönen (rear wishbone failure) and Ralf Schumacher, who was caught out by the red flag after Räikkönen's accident and failed to set a competitive time, as well as the MF1's and the two Super Aguris. The second part saw fewer surprises, with the expected runners lining up for the final top 10 part. The result was that the Ferraris swept the front row.

At the start of the race, Fernando Alonso moved up to second in the first lap, only for Michael Schumacher to begin to pull away. Alonso was involved in a near collision with Schumacher's teammate Felipe Massa, who spun at the first corner. Massa was never a threat after this point, not helped by a delay in his pit stop to change tyres the same lap. Alonso's teammate Giancarlo Fisichella also played little part in the race due to an engine mapping problem which restricted power. He retired on the 21st lap due to hydraulic failure. A live team radio broadcast in which the team informed him that he would have to cope with the engine as well as he could led to Fisichella swearing in response;[4] this incident resulted in future team radio broadcasts being time-delayed. To the surprise of few, Kimi Räikkönen quickly moved his way up the field, only being delayed by Jacques Villeneuve and Fisichella for a short period of time, before passing both men.

Further down the field, Nick Heidfeld and Nico Rosberg, who was making his Grand Prix début, touched at the first corner. Both men were significantly delayed, but recovered. Heidfeld's day continued to get worse, as an incident with David Coulthard was investigated after the race.

Juan Pablo Montoya finished 5th in his McLaren, having never been a threat throughout the race. It was a good day for Williams on a whole, as Mark Webber finished in 6th, while Rosberg was the surprise of the race though, ending up a very respectable 7th, passing Christian Klien after catching him in the last few laps of the race, putting Klien down to a still impressive 8th. Rosberg set the fastest lap of the race, becoming the youngest driver ever to achieve this in a Grand Prix, breaking a record held by Alonso.

Michael Schumacher started on pole for Ferrari and finished the race in second position.

Honda suffered mixed fortunes throughout the race. Early on fans were treated to a fight between Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button, as Button slipped down the order due to a slow getaway. Button eventually fought his way back up, twice passing Juan Pablo Montoya at the end of the straight but losing out again in pitstops. He eventually finished 4th, 0.6 seconds behind Räikkönen in 3rd. Räikkönen fought hard throughout the race, stopping only once on his way to the last podium spot. He rose 19 places in the race which is more than any driver since Fabrizio Barbazza started 25th and finished sixth in the 1993 San Marino Grand Prix.[5]

At the second set of pit stops, Alonso was able to take advantage of staying out longer than Schumacher by coming out of the pit lane side by side with Schumacher. As they came into the first corner both cars were neck and neck, but Alonso was able to pull out in front of the former world champion. Despite coming under heavy pressure from Schumacher towards the end, the reigning champion started off the season with a well earned victory.

After a tussle with David Coulthard, Nick Heidfeld was reprimanded by stewards post-race for positioning his car in a way that forced Coulthard off the race circuit. Coulthard suffered engine failure on cool-down lap and received a 10-place grid penalty for 2006 Malaysian Grand Prix.

This was the first race for the Midland, BMW Sauber, Toro Rosso, Honda F1 and Super Aguri teams, although only Super Aguri was a completely new team, the others all representing buyouts or rebrandings of existing teams. Along with Rosberg, Scott Speed and Yuji Ide were also making their Grand Prix débuts.

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Q1	Q2	Q3	Grid
1	5	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	1:33.310	1:32.025	1:31.431	1
2	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:33.579	1:32.014	1:31.478	2
3	12	Jenson Button	Honda	1:32.603	1:32.025	1:31.549	3
4	1	Fernando Alonso	Renault	1:32.433	1:31.215	1:31.702	4
5	4	Juan Pablo Montoya	McLaren-Mercedes	1:33.233	1:31.487	1:32.164	5
6	11	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1:33.922	1:32.322	1:32.579	6
7	9	Mark Webber	Williams-Cosworth	1:33.454	1:32.309	1:33.006	7
8	15	Christian Klien	Red Bull-Ferrari	1:34.308	1:32.106	1:33.112	8
9	2	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	1:32.934	1:31.831	1:33.496	9
10	16	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1:33.374	1:31.958	1:33.926	10
11	17	Jacques Villeneuve	BMW Sauber	1:33.882	1:32.456		11
12	10	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Cosworth	1:32.945	1:32.620		12
13	14	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Ferrari	1:33.678	1:32.850		13
14	8	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:33.987	1:33.066		14
15	20	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Toro Rosso-Cosworth	1:34.439	1:33.416		15
16	21	Scott Speed	Toro Rosso-Cosworth	1:33.995	1:34.606		16
17	7	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	1:34.702			17
18	19	Christijan Albers	MF1-Toyota	1:35.724			18
19	18	Tiago Monteiro	MF1-Toyota	1:35.900			PL2
20	22	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri-Honda	1:37.411			20
21	23	Yuji Ide	Super Aguri-Honda	1:40.270			21
22	3	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes	no time1			22
Source:[6][7]

Notes

• ^1 — Kimi Räikkönen suffered a right rear suspension failure during his first timed lap. The suspension failure, which was due to a manufacturing fault, red flagged the session and ended Räikkönen's qualifying session.[8]
• ^2 — Tiago Monteiro suffered transmission failure on the way to the grid, so swapped to the T-car and started from the pitlane.[9]