2006 Hungarian F1 Grand Prix Race Report & Results

Event: Hungarian Grand Prix
Track: MotorSportResultsReport::msr_circuit:Unknown shortcode $shortcode

Weather: wet start, drying track

Jenson BUTTON won his 1st F1 World Championship race at the 2006 Hungarian F1 GP, in his 113th Grand Prix start after years of near-misses. The Honda driver started from 14th on the grid (after engine-change penalties from 4th in qualifying) and won at the Hungaroring by 30.837 seconds from Pedro de la Rosa in a wet-drying weekend of chaos. It was the 4th F1 win for the Honda F1 team (as an independent works entrant) and Buttons long-awaited maiden victory.

Wet weekend, engine-penalty grid shuffles

The Hungaroring on 6 August 2006 opened with heavy rain during Saturday qualifying. Raikkonen took pole with a 1:19.599 lap for McLaren but was demoted to 15th after an engine-change penalty. Massa second on the grid, Barrichello third for Honda. Michael Schumacher and Alonso, both with engine penalties, started 10th and 15th respectively. Button, fourth on merit in qualifying, was dropped to 14th under the same rules.

Race day: chaos, Alonso crash, Button comes through

The race started wet and gradually dried. Alonso, starting 15th, had climbed to a comfortable lead by mid-race after Ferrari and other frontrunners had strategic problems. He then crashed spectacularly on lap 51 when his right-front wheel came loose after a pit stop, ending what had looked like a title-clinching drive from the back. Jenson Button, who had been quietly working through the field, inherited the lead and drove home to win by 30.837 seconds from Pedro de la Rosa. It was Buttons first F1 win at his 113th Grand Prix, ending years of "always the bridesmaid" jokes. Heidfeld third for BMW Sauber, Barrichello fourth for Honda, Coulthard fifth for Red Bull, Ralf Schumacher sixth for Toyota. Massa set the fastest lap on lap 65 with a 1:23.516.

Kubica DSQ, Michael Schumacher retires

Robert Kubica, on his F1 debut for BMW Sauber, was disqualified after finishing seventh for a weight-limit infringement. Michael Schumacher retired on lap 67 with a steering failure after a very difficult afternoon. The 2006 championship, which had been narrowing, remained wide open with Alonsos DNF and Michaels DNF cancelling out.

Championship: Alonso 100, Michael 90, Massa 47

Alonso 100 points, Michael 90, Massa third. The 10-point gap remained. Turkey in a fortnight would be at Istanbul Park, one of the season's truly great circuits.

Classification 2006 Hungarian F1 GP

Pos	#	Driver	Team	Time	Laps	Grid	Pts
1	12	Jenson Button	Honda	1:52:20.941	70	14	10
2	4	Pedro de la Rosa	McLaren	1:52:51.778	70	4	8
3	16	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1:53:04.763	70	10	6
4	11	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1:53:06.146	70	3	5
5	14	David Coulthard	Red Bull	+1 lap	69	12	4
6	7	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	+1 lap	69	6	3
7	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	+1 lap	69	2	2
8	5	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	Track rod	67	11	1
9	18	Tiago Monteiro	Midland	+3 laps	67	16	0
10	19	Christijan Albers	Midland	+3 laps	67	22	0
11	21	Scott Speed	Toro Rosso	+4 laps	66	20	0
12	8	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	Engine	65	8	0
13	22	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri	+5 laps	65	19	0
DNF	1	Fernando Alonso	Renault	Drive shaft	51	15	0
DNF	3	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren	Collision	25	1	0
DNF	20	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Toro Rosso	Collision	25	17	0
DNF	10	Nico Rosberg	Williams	Electrical	19	18	0
DNF	2	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	Spin	18	7	0
DNF	15	Christian Klien	Red Bull	Spin	6	13	0
DNF	9	Mark Webber	Williams	Accident	1	5	0
DNF	23	Sakon Yamamoto	Super Aguri	Engine	0	21	0
DSQ	17	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	+1 lap	69	9	0

Fastest lap: 1:23.516 min. by Felipe Massa

About the author

Leopold

Leopold Pleijsier founded F1-Fansite.com in 2001 and has followed Formula 1 since the early 1980s. He writes about daily F1 news, race weekends, drivers and the sport’s history.

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