2006 British Grand Prix

The 2006 British Grand Prix (officially the 2006 Formula 1 Foster's British Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held on 11 June 2006 at the Silverstone Circuit in Northamptonshire, England. The 60-lap race was the eighth round of the 2006 Formula One season.

2006 British Grand Prix
Race 8 of 18 in the 2006 Formula One World Championship
Silverstone Circuit in 2006
Race details
Date	11 June 2006
Official name	2006 Formula 1 Foster's British Grand Prix[1]
Location	Silverstone Circuit, Silverstone, Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire, England
Course	Permanent Road Facility
Course length	5.141 km (3.194 mi)
Distance	60 laps, 308.355 km (191.603 mi)
Weather	Sunny
Pole position
Driver	Fernando Alonso	Renault
Time	1:20.253
Fastest lap
Driver	Fernando Alonso	Renault
Time	1:21.599 on lap 21
Podium
First	Fernando Alonso	Renault
Second	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari
Third	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren-Mercedes
Lap leaders

Ticket sales were rather slow; the race was scheduled far earlier than normal, and local Jenson Button had a rather poor season the previous year. When the race sold out in 2005, Button had been coming off one of his best years. Also, the weekend clashed with England's first World Cup game. Jacques Villeneuve and Juan Pablo Montoya both scored their final World Championship points by finishing in eighth and sixth respectively.

Button had a very poor qualifying run and started the race 19th; after a blinding first few laps, Jenson's engine caught fire on lap 9, due to an oil leak that also caused the car to spin out of the race. Scotsman David Coulthard also had a poor race suffering from understeer.

Fernando Alonso became the first Spanish driver and the youngest driver (24 years, 10 months, 13 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 (leading every lap, he would finally achieve this at the 2010 Singapore Grand Prix).

This race also featured the first ever pit stop to have involved 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.

The only other noticeable incident of the race happened on the first lap, when Scott Speed pushed Ralf Schumacher's Toyota right in the path of Mark Webber at the entrance on the Hangar Straight. Schumacher and Webber retired on the spot, while Speed crawled to the pits and drove straight into the garage at the end of lap 1.