The 2006 Japanese Grand Prix (formally known as the 2006 Formula 1 Fuji Television Japanese Grand Prix) was a

Formula One Formula One (F1) is the highest class of worldwide racing for open-wheel single-seater formula Auto racing, racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The FIA Formula One World Championship has been one ...

race held on 8 October 2006 at the

Suzuka Circuit The , the , is a long motorsport race track located in Ino, Suzuka, Mie, Suzuka City, Mie Prefecture, Japan and operated by Honda Mobilityland, a subsidiary of Honda, Honda Motor Co, Ltd. It has a capacity of 155,000. It is most well known by i ...

, in Suzuka,

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. It was the seventeenth and penultimate round of the 2006 Formula One World Championship, and marked the 32nd running of the Japanese Grand Prix. It was won by

Fernando Alonso Fernando Alonso Díaz (; born 29 July 1981) is a Spanish racing driver who competes in Formula One for Aston Martin in Formula One, Aston Martin. Alonso has won two Formula One World Drivers' Championship titles, which he won in and with ...

, his last win for the

Renault Renault S.A., commonly referred to as Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English), is a French Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company curr ...

team before he moved to

McLaren McLaren Racing Limited ( ) is a British auto racing, motor racing team based at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, Surrey, England. The team is a subsidiary of the McLaren Group, which owns a majority of the team. McLaren is best known a ...

the following season. It was the 20th Grand Prix to be held at Suzuka. It was the first Formula One race to be filmed and broadcast in

high-definition television High-definition television (HDTV) describes a television or video system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since at least 1933; in more recent times, it ref ...

. However the

Fuji Television JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as or , is a Japanese television station that serves the Kantō region as the flagship (broadcasting), flagship station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network System (FNS). The station is owned-and- ...

broadcast was only available in Japan.

Report

Practice and qualifying

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.

Race

Felipe Massa started the race from pole, but Michael Schumacher passed him on lap 3 to take the lead. Meanwhile, Alonso was struggling to get past the Toyotas of Trulli and Ralf Schumacher. By lap 10 Alonso was 5.4 seconds off the leader. On lap 15 Alonso managed to pass Massa in the pitstops and chased Schumacher. He succeeded in closing the gap from 5.4 seconds on lap 10 to 4.2 seconds by lap 27 only for it to open up to 5.9 seconds by lap 34 after the two drivers encountered backmarkers. The race was crucial in the fight for the World Championship, as whoever finished ahead of the two would take the championship lead into the final race. On lap 37, after the two rivals had made their final pitstops, Schumacher's engine failed, his first engine failure since the 2000 French Grand Prix, giving the lead to Alonso, who went on to win the race. As a result, he needed only one point from the final race to secure the title. , Alonso's win remains the last victory for a car running on

Michelin Michelin ( , ), in full ("General Company of the Michelin Enterprises P.L.S."), is a French multinational tyre manufacturing company based in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes '' région'' of France. It is the second largest t ...

tyres, as the manufacturer pulled out of

at the end of the season. Third place finisher

Giancarlo Fisichella Giancarlo "Giano" Fisichella (; born 14 January 1973), also known as Fisico or Fisi, is an Italian racing driver and motorsport executive, who competed in Formula One from to . Fisichella won three Formula One Grands Prix across 14 seasons. Bo ...

dedicated to his best friend, Tonino Visciani, who had died on 5 October 2006 after a heart attack.

Classification

Qualifying

Race

Championship standings after the race

;Drivers' Championship standings ;Constructors' Championship standings * Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. * Bold text and an asterisk indicates competitors who still had a theoretical chance of becoming World Champion.

References

External links

* (archived) {{coord, 34, 50, 35, N, 136, 32, 26, E, source:kolossus-nowiki, display=title Japanese Grand Prix Japanese Grand Prix Grand Prix Japanese Grand Prix