On 23 April 2006, Michael Schumacher held off Fernando Alonso for victory in the San Marino Grand Prix, mirroring Formula 1’s previous Imola race.
Back in 2005, Alonso won by 0.215s over a resurgent Schumacher, who started from 13th on the grid; the Spaniard withstood intense pressure from the Ferrari in the last 12 laps.
This time around, Schumacher was on pole – beating Ayrton Senna's all-time record – with Alonso down in fifth. The Renault driver overtook Honda’s Rubens Barrichello around the outside of Tamburello at the start, then easily cleared Ferrari’s Felipe Massa and Honda’s Jenson Button in the first round of pitstops, making the most of a higher fuel load for his first stint.
When he rejoined from his pitstop on lap 26, Alonso was 11 seconds down on Schumacher. It took the reigning champion only eight laps to catch his elder.
But the seven-time title winner simply made no mistake over the remaining 28 tours, and Alonso failed to find a way past on the track. Schumacher’s second pitstop was half a second slower, but his in-lap was significantly quicker, allowing him to retain the advantage.
“I think the Renault was the faster car but in fact, this appearance was probably exaggerated by the fact that Schumacher had such a dreadful middle stint,” Renault executive director of engineering Pat Symonds pondered after the race.
“With Fernando stuck behind him, we were left with very few options to try and capitalise on our performance advantage, as we believe our planned lap for the second stop was, contrary to what the figures on television seemed to indicate, very close to his.
“We pulled in early because running longer was unlikely to pay off for us, as the Ferrari’s tyres seemed very quick at the start of a stint. So we tried to get Fernando a lap of clean air to beat Michael in the pits and it didn’t quite work but as the phrase goes, ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’. And in this case, nothing lost either.”
An error by Alonso in the Villeneuve chicane on lap 59 eventually ended the breathtaking duel.
“The key moment was staying ahead after the second pitstop,” Schumacher commented. “As we saw last year, overtaking at this track is almost impossible, unless the guy in front makes a mistake. With all my years of experience, I knew that what I wanted to do was keep Alonso behind me, but at my pace, not pushing flat out, and that's what I did.”
“At a normal circuit we could have won, but this is Imola where overtaking is almost impossible,” Alonso added. “I could see that I was much faster than Michael in the second stint, and I was just trying to put pressure on him, hoping he would make a mistake. We did not plan to make our second stop when we did – we pitted early to try and overtake him but it didn’t quite work. So I stayed in his slipstream and in the last five laps, put all the revs on the engine and tried to overtake. But the Ferrari was a lot quicker again at the end, and it didn’t happen.
“Looking at the championship, though, this is perfect. My closest rivals at the start of the weekend were Fisichella and Raikkonen, and I have taken points from both of them.”
While Alonso’s statement was correct, in hindsight it was not shrewd, especially with Ferrari clearly more competitive than in 2005.
Going into the weekend, the Renault driver did lead the standings with 28 points to Renault team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella’s and McLaren racer Kimi Raikkonen’s 14, with Schumacher and Button on 11. He therefore left Imola with a slightly increased lead, having collected 36 points to Schumacher’s 21.
But the German would prove to be his true rival for the title, winning more races over the remainder of the season, though Alonso eventually prevailed.
