2006 FORMULA 1 Foster's Australian Grand Prix

No one in the team minds the 21 hours it takes to fly to Australia when a venue as fantastic as Melbourne is at the end of it. The race weekend at Albert Park is a real pleasure, mainly due to the slick organization at the circuit, although the Aussie sunshine certainly helps!

The first race of the year is always exciting as everyone gets to see whether or not the work they have done during winter testing has paid off. The Australian race is famous for its high rate of attrition. Its 'Race One' and the teams may not have had time to 'de-bug' their new cars and, with the weather being as hot as it usually is in Melbourne, the heat only adds to reliability issues. Winter testing is carried out in the Northern Hemisphere so the new cars haven't been run in hot conditions so their cooling system haven't been proven and may not be able to cope with the rigours of the Australian climate.

As the circuit utilises city streets and is only used for racing once a year, the track is very dirty at the beginning of the race weekend. The dust and dirt soon clears though to reveal a smooth, although slightly bumpy track, that is kind to tyres. The circuit consists of mostly medium-speed turns and is pretty hard on the brakes.

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Race times
Pos	Driver	Time	*P*	Laps	Gap	Hotlap		Pts
1	raka100	52:04.215		35	0	1:25.917		100
2	Skymota	53:02.371		35	+58.1	1:27.452		85
3	Althor_GP4	51:29.562		34	+1 Lap	1:26.751		75
4	fabrikart	52:03.108		34	+1 Lap	1:25.272		65
5	curisam	52:03.791	-1(+1:27)	35	+1 Lap	1:25.187		60
6	AleMaineri	53:10.815	+25	34	+1 Lap	1:25.329		55
7	dviejo	51:55.157		33	+2 Laps	1:28.144		48
8	Pipo2005	52:05.415	-4(+1:59)	35	+4 Laps	1:25.504		44
9	mamego	51:13.928		30	+5 Laps	1:29.736		40
10	Emiliano	52:19.038	-4(+1:59)	34	+5 Laps	1:27.176		36
11	cuest	43:11.301		29	+6 Laps	1:24.614		36
12	Paul	40:18.587		27	+8 Laps	1:24.937		31
13	Rexakosix	29:32.951		20	+15 Laps	1:25.690		27
14	quideco	29:47.689	+25	19	+16 Laps	1:27.563		24
15	Kaiser_46	24:33.719		17	+18 Laps	1:24.473		27
16	haedmoli	21:04.381	+25	13	+22 Laps	1:29.232		20
17	canijo	19:36.464	+25	11	+24 Laps	1:33.328		18
18	JHN	13:38.599		9	+26 Laps	1:29.495		16
19	Torrente	51:02.002		35	-1:02.2	1:24.715		0

Qualification times
		Sectors			Partials
Pos	Driver	S1	S2	S3	P1	P2	Time	*P*	Gap	F		Pts
1	Torrente	28.3	27.0	29.7	28.307	55.347	1:25.072	0	0.000	18		10
2	Kaiser_46	28.4	27.0	29.7	28.493	55.515	1:25.296	0	0.224	13		7
3	curisam	28.2	27.0	30.0	28.288	55.387	1:25.414	0	0.342	11		5
4	raka100	28.5	27.5	29.7	28.544	56.139	1:25.862	0	0.790	13		3
5	Paul	28.7	27.3	29.7	28.774	56.149	1:25.931	0	0.859	12		1
6	Althor_GP4	28.9	28.2	30.4	28.912	57.149	1:27.563	0	2.491	12		0
7	caspita	28.8	27.9	30.8	28.873	56.833	1:27.698	0	2.626	12		0
8	dviejo	29.4	28.3	30.8	29.439	57.752	1:28.591	0	3.519	16		0
9	fabrikart	29.5	27.5	30.4	29.579	57.117	1:27.594	27	2.522	15		0
10	mamego	29.9	28.6	31.7	29.960	58.585	1:30.345	34	5.273	13		0
11	JHN	29.4	28.0	30.7	29.436	57.488	1:28.230	1:21	3.158	19		0
12	cuest	28.1	26.9	29.7	28.126	55.063	1:24.840	3:07	0.232	12		0
13	Mr_Speed	28.4	26.8	29.7	28.414	55.290	1:25.049	0	0.023	18		0
14	AleMaineri	28.6	26.9	29.8	28.603	55.509	1:25.393	0	0.321	11		0
15	Pipo2005	28.7	26.8	30.1	28.746	55.565	1:25.687	0	0.615	11		0
16	Rexakosix	28.7	27.1	30.0	28.783	55.977	1:26.005	0	0.933	17		0
17	davidmd	28.8	27.3	30.6	28.827	56.208	1:26.829	0	1.757	14		0
18	Skymota	29.1	28.1	30.1	29.189	57.309	1:27.483	0	2.411	10		0

Practice times
		Sectors			Partials
Pos	Driver	S1	S2	S3	P1	P2	Time	Gap
1	Torrente	27.4	26.0	28.7	27.445	53.457	1:22.164	+0.000
2	Kaiser_46	27.6	26.1	28.9	27.659	53.802	1:22.729	+0.565
3	cuest	27.7	26.5	28.8	27.703	54.298	1:23.144	+0.980
4	fabrikart	27.8	26.4	29.0	27.811	54.220	1:23.236	+1.072
5	Rexakosix	27.8	26.3	29.2	27.894	54.259	1:23.554	+1.390
6	raka100	27.7	26.7	29.0	27.798	54.500	1:23.562	+1.398
7	Paul	27.7	26.3	29.4	27.799	54.172	1:23.577	+1.413
8	curisam	28.1	26.7	29.1	28.170	54.904	1:24.049	+1.885
9	caspita	28.3	26.8	29.4	28.317	55.186	1:24.665	+2.501
10	quideco	28.1	26.9	29.7	28.183	55.102	1:24.887	+2.723
11	JHN	28.5	27.0	29.5	28.593	55.610	1:25.157	+2.993
12	Skymota	28.2	27.5	29.5	28.282	55.823	1:25.375	+3.211
13	Althor_GP4	28.6	27.2	29.6	28.631	55.900	1:25.597	+3.433
14	mamego	28.4	27.2	29.9	28.468	55.703	1:25.665	+3.501
15	dviejo	28.5	27.6	30.0	28.586	56.238	1:26.280	+4.116
16	800	28.4	27.8	30.0	28.462	56.276	1:26.343	+4.179
17	Neltharion	29.3	28.8	31.1	29.381	58.262	1:29.398	+7.234
18	Mr_Speed	27.2	26.0	28.6	27.270	53.332	1:21.956	-0.208
19	Pipo2005	27.7	26.4	28.8	27.746	54.184	1:23.081	+0.917
20	AleMaineri	27.7	26.6	29.0	27.750	54.397	1:23.493	+1.329
21	davidmd	28.0	26.5	29.2	28.055	54.580	1:23.869	+1.705
22	haedmoli	28.2	27.7	29.8	28.204	55.925	1:25.818	+3.654
23	sinde	29.1	28.5	30.6	29.114	57.711	1:28.343	+6.179