The 2006 Chinese Grand Prix (officially the 2006 Formula 1 Sinopec Chinese Grand Prix) was the sixteenth race of the 2006 FIA Formula One World Championship. It was held on 1 October 2006 at Shanghai International Circuit, Shanghai. The race was won by Michael Schumacher, driving a Ferrari, and would turn out to be the 91st and last victory of his Formula One career. It was also his last podium finish until the 2012 European Grand Prix, during his comeback to the sport, and the last win for a German driver until Sebastian Vettel won the 2008 Italian Grand Prix.
Report
Background
Renault were very confident about their chances in this Grand Prix, they claimed that Michael Schumacher's previous two races in Shanghai were "poor". Schumacher did admit that he had bad form in China, but said that he expected it "to be better this time around."
Following back-to-back wins in Turkey and on home soil, Ferrari certainly had the momentum coming into the Grand Prix, the Italian team were also ahead of Renault by 3 points in the constructors championship and Michael Schumacher was 2 points behind Fernando Alonso in the Drivers' Championship.
Following Lewis Hamilton's GP2 victory in Monza and an encouraging test session with McLaren, the Woking-based team were rumoured to give the young British driver his debut in favour of Pedro de la Rosa, who had been performing well after replacing Juan Pablo Montoya. However, McLaren announced that de la Rosa would be racing in China. McLaren's other driver, Kimi Räikkönen, was aiming to win the weekend's Grand Prix following signs of speed in his previous Grand Prix.
Williams announced that they were using a revised FW28, the Williams-Cosworth FW28A. The car featured a new aerodynamic package developed by test drivers Alexander Wurz and Narain Karthikeyan. The test team also carried out the first track test of the Toyota-powered interim Williams FW28B. The car itself completed 745 kilometres and the team only experienced minor problems.
Following some impressive Friday test performances at Turkey and Italy, BMW Sauber's 19-year-old test driver, Sebastian Vettel, had agreed to see out the rest of the year with the German team. The young German driver had a busy schedule, as he was also competing in the Formula 3 Euroseries.
With the sacking of Christian Klien, Red Bull announced that Robert Doornbos would replace him for the final 3 Grands Prix. Replacing Doornbos's role as the third driver was GP2 driver Michael Ammermüller.
Toro Rosso announced during the week leading up to the Grand Prix, that they had signed Alex Hitzinger as their new technical director to replace Gabriele Tredozi. Hitzinger began his role in November 2006.
Spyker MF1 announced their first driver for 2007 during the weekend, which was Dutch driver Christijan Albers.
Super Aguri's Takuma Sato had a dismal start to the weekend as he was demoted ten places on the grid as his team changed the Honda engine in his car. Sato had been due to continue using the Honda V8 he ran at the last round in Italy, but the discovery of a problem, which had not been disclosed by Super Aguri, had prompted the team to replace the engine ahead of the Friday first practice session.
Friday practice
Alexander Wurz was fastest in the first Friday practice session in the Williams-Cosworth, 0.004 seconds faster than BMW Sauber's third driver, Sebastien Vettel and Jenson Button completed the top three, over six-tenths slower than Wurz. Michael Schumacher, Neel Jani and Alexandre Prémat completed the top six; all within 0.07 seconds of each other. While Schumacher's championship rival, Fernando Alonso, did not set a time along with his teammate, Giancarlo Fisichella.
Wurz and Vettel were fastest again in the second session, Wurz was fastest with a 1:35.539, around 0.03 seconds faster than he was in the first session and 0.05 seconds faster than Vettel with Honda's Anthony Davidson completing the top three positions. The Austrian was very happy with his time, specially since this was his first time in Shanghai, "It was a good day today and driving was a lot of fun out there. I have never driven this circuit, and I attacked it right from the beginning" he said. Championship rivals, Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso, were within a tenth of a second of each other in fifth and sixth, respectively. Felipe Massa dropped ten places from the grid after his engine gave way during the session.
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.