Although Eddie Jordan had sold his team before the 2005 season, 2006 marked the first year for the team under the Midland banner. The M16 was launched on February 3rd, making it the first time a Russian manufacturer had entered Formula One. The car undertook a shakedown test at Silverstone the following day, before a four-day test at Jerez which began on February 7th.
Originally, Dallara was intended to build the Midland car for 2006, but this did not materialize. The team utilized their wind-tunnel but built the chassis themselves in the UK. James Key was appointed Technical Director, with Adrian Sutil, Markus Winkelhock, and Roman Rusinov as test drivers. The M16 used engines purchased from Toyota. Key noted significant aerodynamic improvements, particularly around the rear of the car, compared to the previous season's EJ15B.
During early tests, the M16 demonstrated strong reliability, though it had unique handling characteristics that drivers needed to adapt to before the season began in Bahrain. By day three of the Jerez test, drivers were achieving 1:20.6 lap times, using both the M16 and the older EJ15B chassis. This was an improvement over initial tests with the Toyota V8 in December 2005, where Albers and Thomas Biagi recorded lap times between 1:21 and 1:23.
The 2006 season was not successful for Midland, with poor early results and increasing retirements despite positive comments from the technical team. At the 2006 German Grand Prix, both M16 cars were disqualified for using flexible wings that failed FIA testing. The following race in Hungary saw the M16's best results, with Monteiro finishing 9th and Albers 10th. In September, just before the Italian Grand Prix, Alex Shnaider sold the Midland team to Dutch car manufacturer Spyker Cars. The livery was changed to orange and silver, but results did not improve. The team finished 10th in the Constructors' Championship with 0 points. The car achieved a median qualifying performance of 19th and a median fastest lap performance of 18th over the season.
At the British Grand Prix, ITV F1 reporter Louise Goodman became the first woman to be involved in a pit stop when she removed the left rear tyre of Tiago Monteiro's car during a stop for Midland.
Christijan Albers wore a special helmet at the Canadian Grand Prix to support the Netherlands national football team at the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Berlin.
In 2011, the M16 made a brief appearance in the third episode of the first season of the American legal drama television series Suits.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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