The 2006 Chinese was a key race in Michael Schumacher\u2019s attempt to \u2018retire\u2019 from Formula One with his eighth world title. But was it in vain?<\/p>\n
Qualifying Report<\/em><\/p>\n Renault\u2019s Fernando Alonso took pole for the race ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella in wet conditions. Alonso topped all three sessions while both Michael Schumacher struggled and only managed sixth. \u00a0Rubens\u00a0Barrichello and Jenson Button were joint third, sharing 1m 45.503s, and Raikkonen took fifth on 1m 45.754s.<\/p>\n Race Report<\/em><\/p>\n Michael Schumacher took his final ever race win which moved him to level on points with championship rival Fernando Alonso with just a race remaining. Schumacher had looked out of the race as Alonso pulled away at the start to build a twenty-five-second lead.<\/p>\n Schumacher chose not to switch his tyres at the first stop, while Alonso did. This was a bad move as the new tyres didn\u2019t give him as much performance as the old set. Plus, the right rear wheel nut in Alonso’s second stop cost him at least seven seconds.<\/p>\n By the midpoint of the race, Alonso\u2019s teammate Giancarlo Fisichella was leading but under attack from Schumacher. Until his stop, it was a good stop but when he ran wide re-joining allowing Schumacher to take the lead where he remained until the chequered flag.<\/p>\n BMW\u2019s Nick Heidfeld came unstuck after Jenson Button tried to pass team-mate Rubens Barrichello spun, hitting the back of him. \u00a0Button slid wide at one stage and fell behind McLaren\u2019s Pedro de la Rosa. He eventually recovered and repassed the Spaniard when De la Rosa made a mistake of his own. With button fourth, De la Rosa fifth and Barrichello sixth.<\/p>\n William\u2019s Mark Webber finished eighth, following a spin by David Coulthard which caused him to hit Felipe Massa, taking him out of the race. Sauber’s Robert Kubica had an up and down race, getting shoved down the order early on in the opening lap melees in heavy standing water and high spray; later he was the first to switch to dries, just before the track was ready.<\/p>\n Podium \u2013 Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso, Giancarlo Fisichella. \u00a0While there were five retirements and Takuma Sato was disqualified from a fourteenth \u00a0place for blocking faster drivers.<\/p>\n What will it be remembered for?<\/em><\/p>\n The 2006 Chinese Grand Prix will be remembered as the last victory for Michael Schumacher and it if he did not return maybe we wouldn\u2019t doubt his ability. It proved despite his \u2018retirement\u2019 he was not slowing down and was gunning to go out with a bang as an eight times champion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 2006 Chinese was a key race in Michael Schumacher\u2019s attempt to \u2018retire\u2019 from Formula One with his eighth world title. But was it in vain? Qualifying Report Renault\u2019s Fernando Alonso took pole for the race ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella in wet conditions. Alonso topped all three sessions while both Michael Schumacher struggled and only<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[34,400,401,1816,1817,1951],"class_list":["post-3539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-tales-from-the-vault","tag-34","tag-chinese-gp","tag-chinese-grand-prix","tag-shanghai","tag-shanghai-international-circuit","tag-tales-from-the-vault"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}