F1 Grand Prix - 2006

The count down for the 2006 F1 Grand Prix has begun.

2005 was an interesting year with mixed results mixed lucks for F1. It began carriers, it ended few. It gave birth to a new champion and many more fierce competitors. While Michael Schumacher and Ferrari had a bad run, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen fought a long battle for the Apex spot with Alonso coming on top, with a bit of luck in his favor, or should I say with Kimi having a fair share of ill-luck? India too had its very own Narain Karthikeyan on the track, who for a rookie performed well but had to go through some rough ride and lost the following year’s contract to his teammate Tiago Monteiro, who went on to clinch not only a podium finish in the controversial US GP but also the best Rookie award for 2005. Speaking of the controversy, the US GP triggered world wide criticism for the way it was handled. The issue began when the tyre company Michelin brought in wrong tyres to the GP that almost cost the life of Ralf Schumacher during testing when it failed to break properly at a turn following a high speed stretch. Michelin advised all its teams to avoid racing for safety reasons and the race went on with 6 cars from three teams that ran on Bridgestone. Michael won his first and only race of the season. Though I personally feel that its not fair to call off the race since Bridgestone did their home work right, it earned the Boos of the spectators who spent all their sweat waiting to watch their favorite heroes in this race; it’s an embarrassing moment in F1 History and a day that all but maybe Tiago would want to forget.

2005 ended with a good note and gave way to 2006, a year full of changes.
BMW split from Williams after a long period of successful run. BMW bought over Sauber to have its own team while Williams went in for Cosworth engines.
Honda bought over BAR.
Rubens Barrichello moved out of Ferrari, may be because he was tired being the second driver behind the still competent Michael. He is now with Honda.
Narian Karthikeyan was out of Jordan (Now Midland F1), and has now joined Williams as the forth driver. Better than nothing!

With growing technology, restricted power output and cost reduction attempts, the gap between F1 teams are reducing making it anyone's ball game (or say Wheel game).
I can’t wait to see this years F1 and I recon this will be one of the best in recent times.

The Calendar for this year’s F1 is:


While Brazil's inclusion is subject to approval, Belgium is officially out of this year’s race following infrastructure problems.

All major teams have released there 2006 F1 cars fitted with the new v8 engines.
Here is a glimpse of the newer, meaner machines with their drivers (in Lexicographic order)

BMW:


Ferrari:


Honda:

McLaren-Mercedes:


Midland F1:


Renault:


Toyota:


Willams:


2006 also has a new and weird Qualifying Rule:

Here is how it works. For the first 15 minutes all 22 drivers can clock times. The slowest 6 will take up the last 6 positions on the grid and be eliminated from the rest of qualifying. The remaining 16 drivers will have their times deleted and clock times in the next 15 minutes. The slowest 6 of those 16 will take up positions 11 to 16 and not participate in the rest of qualifying. The remaining 10 drivers will use the last 30 minutes to decide the top 10 positions. Got it?

Clearly, its going to be an exciting year!