2005 United States Grand Prix

2005 United States Grand Prix
Race 9 of 19 in the 2005 Formula One World Championship
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Race details[1][2]
Date June 19, 2005 (2005-06-19)
Official name 2005 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix
Location Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Speedway, Indiana[3]
Course Permanent racing facility
Course length 4.192 km (2.605 miles)
Distance 73 laps, 306.016 km (190.238 miles)
Weather Cloudy, temperatures up to 25.0 °C (77.0 °F); wind speeds up to 17.9 km/h (11.1 mph)[4]
Pole position
Driver
Toyota
Time 1:10.625
Fastest lap
Driver Germany Michael Schumacher Ferrari
Time 1:11.497 on lap 48
Podium
First
Ferrari
Second
Ferrari
Third
Jordan-Toyota
Lap leaders

The 2005 United States Grand Prix (officially the 2005 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix)[5] was a Formula One motor race held on June 19, 2005, at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and was the ninth race of the 2005 Formula One World Championship. The event is one of the most infamous races in motor sports history. Out of the 20 cars that entered the race, only the six cars from the teams using Bridgestone tyres (Ferrari, Jordan, and Minardi) competed. The remaining fourteen entrants, all using Michelin tyres, completed the formation lap, but retired to the pit lane before the race started.

Following several tyre failures before the race, which caused major accidents for Ralf Schumacher's Toyota during Friday practice and then for his Toyota stand-in Ricardo Zonta, Michelin advised its seven customer teams that without a reduction in speed in Turn 13, the tyres provided for the race would only be safe for 10 laps. Michelin had been providing working tyres for the race since 2001. The situation was worsened by the 2005 Formula One rules, which forbade tyre changes during the race, and a repave of the oval portion of the course after the 2004 Brickyard 400.[6]

The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), the sport's governing body, refused a compromise proposal from Michelin to allow a chicane to be installed, maintaining that such rule changes would be grossly unfair to the Bridgestone-shod teams, who had come prepared with properly working tyres, and that a last-minute change to the track layout would be dangerous in case of crashes. The Michelin teams, unable to come to a compromise with the FIA, decided not to participate. It was later stated that the Michelin-shod teams could have potentially exposed themselves to criminal liability under Indiana state law had they competed.[7] It was also thought that since Bridgestone also provided tyres to the two Indy Racing League series (IndyCar Series and Infiniti Pro Series) via its Firestone brand, and had encountered issues during testing that caused them to return with different IndyCar tyres,[8] it understood better the loads the Formula One tyres would be under. Thus, Bridgestone was able to provide a safe tyre.

Of the six competitors, Ferrari's Michael Schumacher was the eventual winner, with his teammate Rubens Barrichello finishing second and Jordan driver Tiago Monteiro finishing third, which would be his only podium in Formula One as well as the last podium for Jordan. The result moved Schumacher to third in the World Drivers' Championship—no driver above him in driver championship points took part in the race.[9] The final race result was the lowest number of finishing entries ever seen in a major open-wheel motorsports event at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway since the institution of the 500-Mile Race (surpassing the previous record low of seven finishers in 1966, a race marred by a major first lap accident that eliminated a full third of the starting field). The situation created enormous negative publicity for the sport of Formula One, especially in the United States, a market in which Formula One had struggled to establish itself over the preceding twenty years.

  1. ^ "2005 United States GP". ChicaneF1. Archived from the original on December 4, 2013. Retrieved December 13, 2020.
  2. ^ "United States Grand Prix 2005 results". ESPN. Archived from the original on July 16, 2015. Retrieved December 13, 2020.
  3. ^ "2005 SAP United States Grand Prix". Racing-Reference. Archived from the original on September 17, 2011. Retrieved December 13, 2020.
  4. ^ "Weather information for the "2005 United States Grand Prix"". The Old Farmers' Almanac. Archived from the original on May 26, 2024. Retrieved June 25, 2013.
  5. ^ "United States". Formula1.com. Archived from the original on June 15, 2005. Retrieved November 9, 2021.
  6. ^ "CHICAGOLAND SPEEDWAY ASPHALT COMPOUND BEING USED IN THE REPAVING OF THE LEGENDARY INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY". Chicagoland Speedway. NASCAR Digital Media Network. April 2, 2004. Archived from the original on September 28, 2020. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference BBC20050722 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ AUTOWEEK (April 24, 2005). "A Blistering Problem: Repaved Indy retested after uneven tire wear discovered". Autoweek. Hearst Communications. Archived from the original on December 14, 2020. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
  9. ^ "Schumacher claims farcical US win". BBC. June 19, 2005. Archived from the original on August 24, 2007. Retrieved October 28, 2007.


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