By Nick Sparkes
June 26 2006

As ever the Canadian Grand Prix sprang a number of surprises, with plenty of action from start to finish. Toyota’s Jarno Trulli drove a good clean race to finally score his first points of the season in sixth, whilst teammate Ralf Schumacher had a far more erratic time with handling issues. Giancarlo Fisichella jumped the start and allowed Kimi Raikkonen through into the first corner, with Fernando Alonso leading away from pole. Jarno Trulli made a good start to hold four into the opening corners, whilst Ralf Schumacher looked to play it safe in the middle of the field, but lost out with some of the others being a bit more ambitious. Ambitious is a word which best describes some of the opening incidents which followed, the two Midlands tangled at the hairpin, with Albers retiring on the spot. Then Nico Rosberg and Juan Pablo Montoya who got ahead of Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher at the start went side by side into Turn 3 with the two making contact and Rosberg left spinning into the wall. The first of two Safety car periods got underway so the marshals could get rid of the destroyed Williams at Turn 3 whilst Montoya pitted for a new nose. At the restart Fisichella took a drive through for his jumped start, allowing Trulli and Michael Schumacher up into third and four, with Fisichella now in fifth. Montoya would then retire after hitting the famous ‘Champions Wall’ whilst the first round of pit stops got underway.

Michael would overtake Jarno before the first round of pit stops, whilst Raikkonen and Alonso were only seconds apart up the round. Then Ralf Schumacher began touring around the circuit before pitting, but incidentally the team were waiting for Jarno’s first pit stop forcing the German to continue you on whilst Jarno pitted from fourth. A tidy pit stop saw Jarno get back underway, which was the least you could say for McLaren’s Kimi Raikkonen who suffered a sticky left rear, which lost him valuable seconds. Therefore Alonso opened his lead over Raikkonen with Michael Schumacher in a distance third place.

Ralf Schumacher would make endless visits to the pits in order to solve a handling issue with his rear tyres. The German would spend most of the race facing the wrong direction down at the hairpin as the rubber coming off the softer tyres made the off line very slippery. In the closing stages Raikkonen would lose more time in his second pit stop when he stalled his engine, whilst a touring Ralf Schumacher lead to the retirement of Jacques Villeneuve who was forced onto the dirty side of the track and skidded into the wall and out of the race. This caused the final Safety car with fewer than 10 laps to go. At the restart Alonso reopened his lead whilst Michael Schumacher began hunting down Kimi Raikkonen. On the penultimate lap Raikkonen ran onto the dirt at the hairpin and with little traction lost second place to Michael, David Coulthard would gain eighth place from Jenson Button after a similar situation.

Fernando Alonso took Michelin’s 100th victory, and his first at Canada. Michael Schumacher was second with Kimi Raikkonen third. For Toyota there was relief, Jarno Trulli finished sixth, his first points of the season. Teammate Ralf Schumacher retired with a few laps to go, but was a number of laps down anyway and was never in a position to challenge for points.