2006 Spanish Grand Prix – Qualification – All Renault Front Row
May 13th, 2006 by Haas
Fernando Alonso and Giancarlo Fisichella produced the special 2 laps Renault have been waiting for since the Malaysian Grand Prix to seal the front row ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix. Michael and Massa will form the all scarlet second row.
The pace of the top 2 teams was such that the next best time was over 0.6s slower than the bunch. Barrichello put in a sterling performance on his Honda to take the 5th spot on the grid. Ralf and Trulli impressed in their Toyota beating the other major contenders Button and Raikkonen.
Kimi’s dismal 9th left a lot to be desired as Montoya(12th) could not make the cut in the second session. The Mc Laren looks in deep trouble this race as the track will be very difficult to overtake on. Kimi seems to hv a large fuel load but that will only be clear in the race.
Nick Heidfeld qualified in 10th for the BMW qualifying ahead of their half-brothers Williams which struggled with Webber finishing on 11th and Rosberg on 13th. The other Bridgestone runners seem to hv struggled comparing to the Ferraris maybe a sign that Michelin might hv the right measure of this track.
David Coulthard produced the only major shakeup in qualification by spinning out in the first session in his hot lap. The red flags were pulled out spoiling Michael and Button’s laps in the first session. Montagny ran wide in the last corner in the first session spoiling his time as he finished over 1.5s slower than his team mate.
Alonso’s lap of 1m 14.648s was the second best lap in the entire 1hr behind Michael’s amazing 1m 14.637s in the second session. The Ferrari looked really strong in the initial parts of the third session but lost almost a second in his first hot lap. The second hot lap was faster but not fast enough to challenge either the Renaults.
The Alonsomaniacs crowded the grand stands to greet their home hero in his first defense of the World Championships. The home advantage has really spiced up Renault’s approach of this race. They looked brilliant on the track and frankly outsmarted the Ferrari’s by getting their cars to do an extra lap in the third session -> Extra fuel for the race.(The Renaults did 16 laps compared to 15 laps by the scarlet cars).
My predictions for the race:
1. Fernando Alonso: He should not hv much problem winning this one. I expect him to do it with class probably many seconds ahead of anybody else(will prob turn down the revs in the end 
so I wont predict the exact time 
)
2. Giancarlo Fisichella: I hope this is possible but probably Michael will jump him on strategy. He holds the key if he can actually hold back Michael like Massa held back Alonso in Imola before the pitstops.
3. Michael Schumacher: Nobody else in contention actually . Knowing his class he will probably easily get ahead on Fisi but Alonso is another huge hurdle which I dont expect the German to cross.
2006 Spanish Grand Prix Qualification Results:
Pos Driver Team First Second Third Laps(for Fule allocation)* 1 Fernando Alonso Renault 1:15.816 1:15.124 1:14.648 14 2 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 1:16.046 1:14.766 1:14.709 15 3 Michael Schumacher Ferrari 1:16.049 1:14.637 1:14.970 13 4 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:16.359 1:15.245 1:15.442 13 5 Rubens Barrichello Honda 1:16.266 1:15.258 1:15.885 13 6 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 1:16.234 1:15.164 1:15.885 14 7 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1:16.174 1:15.068 1:15.976 14 8 Jenson Button Honda 1:16.054 1:15.150 1:16.008 14 9 Kimi Räikkönen McLaren-Mercedes 1:16.613 1:15.422 1:16.015 14 10 Nick Heidfeld Sauber-BMW 1:16.322 1:15.468 1:17.144 14 11 Mark Webber WilliamsCosworth 1:16.685 1:15.502 12 Juan Pablo Montoya McLaren-Mercedes 1:16.195 1:15.801 13 Nico Rosberg WilliamsCosworth 1:17.213 1:15.804 14 Jacques Villeneuve Sauber-BMW 1:16.066 1:15.847 15 Christian Klien RBR-Ferrari 1:16.627 1:15.928 16 Vitantonio Liuzzi STR-Cosworth 1:17.105 1:16.661 17 Scott Speed STR-Cosworth 1:17.361 18 Tiago Monteiro MF1-Toyota 1:17.702 19 Christijan Albers MF1-Toyota 1:18.024 20 Takuma Sato SuperAguri-Honda 1:18.920 21 Franck Montagny SuperAguri-Honda 1:20.763 22 David Coulthard RBR-Ferrari No time *All cars pitted twice in the session losing 2 laps of fuel.
[...] The complete qualifying timings and another review of today’s qualifying, can be viewed in Haas’ review. [...]