Formula 1‘s rich history includes many amazing moments, thrilling races, breathtaking overtakes, legendary champions like Juan Manuel Fangio, Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, or Lewis Hamilton, and controversial moments which made the category look pretty bad.
One of those moments came in the 2005 United States Grand Prix, when only six cars took part of the start of the race in one of the biggest farces ever seen in motorsport history. Why did that happen on June 19th, 2005 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway? Well, 14 cars were equipped with Michelin tyres that, according to the rules of that season, had to last the entire race.
Features editor @SimonArron on the farcical 2005 United States F1 Grand Prix https://t.co/KV6XxrMt4u pic.twitter.com/8RtXWxV1jy
— Motor Sport magazine (@Motor_Sport) March 5, 2018
However, the Michelin tyres were not up to the challenge of the circuit, and many tyre failures were seen and some heavy crashes were caused. Pointing towards safety, the 14 Michelin-equipped cars withdrew from the race right after the formation lap, and only the six cars with Bridgestone tyres took part in the race.
The event was won by Michael Schumacher, followed by his Ferrari teammate Rubens Barrichello. Tiago Monteiro completed the podium (his only podium in F1) for Jordan, ahead of his teammate Narain Karthikeyan and the Minardi pair of Christijan Albers and Patrick Friesacker.