The forgotten winners from F1's US Grand Prix debacle

It would never be allowed to happen these days. 

The 2005 United States Grand Prix not only represented a massive failure on behalf of all involved in the sorry affair, including the Bridgestone teams, but shredded F1's image in a market it had been trying to crack ever since the world championship was incepted back in 1950.

It wasn't just that the monumental failures left race-going fans with a six-car 'race' to watch, that would be bad enough, but the fact that it happened, and was allowed to happen, at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. 

There are few places as engrained in the American sporting psyche as The Brickyard, and so for these pesky Europeans to defame and stink out the place in such a manner was unforgivable and F1's image was shredded. When you're trying to break into a market where IndyCar (or Indy Racing League as it was back then) and NASCAR - in the middle of its Jeff Jordon-Dale Earnhardt Jr-Jimmie Johnson-Tony Stewart era, this is exactly not what you're supposed to do.

The major fault for the debacle lies with Michelin, who discovered after Ralf Schumacher's big practice crash at the banked Turn 13 - the Oval's Turn 1 - that it could not guarantee the safety of its tyres. 

Frantic investigations followed, with a new batch of tyres flown over from France, but when tested, these too were found to have the same problem affecting the one originally brought to IMS. 

Michelin then informed the FIA’s Charlie Whiting that it was not satisfied its tyres could last more than 10 laps at racing speed through the banking, but Whiting refused to put in a temporary chicane, arguing, correctly so, that it would require the entire circuit to be re-homologated, and that it was up to Michelin to provide suitable equipment which it had failed to do.

As for Bridgestone, which had brought the correct equipment, it was a firm: 'This is nothing to do with us, guv'.

At the heart of the problems lay the fact that the track surface had been diamond-grinded to improve grip and water drainage, but increased tyre wear. Couple that with the nine degrees of banking for a corner unlike any other on the calendar...

But as F1 tore up its place in America, there are some forgotten stories from Indianapolis that day - those drivers who took the start not in Ferraris and effectively, had a four-way race for one podium spot.

The forgotten winner

Even as the field trundled around for the formation lap, negotiations were still ongoing including between drivers and their teams as David Coulthard made clear to Red Bull he was willing to take the risk and race.

However, had a serious accident occurred and a fan, marshal, driver or team personnel been seriously injured or killed as a result of it, with F1, the FIA, IMS, the driver, team and Michelin all aware of the possibility that it could happen, litigation would have likely been in the millions. 

In the end, it was simply not worth the risk as the Toyota, Red Bull, McLaren, Renault, BAR, Williams and Sauber cars all pulled in at the end of the formation lap, leaving just the Ferrari, Jordan and Minardi cars left on the grid. 

Predictably Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello led a Ferrari one-two, its only victory of the troubled 2005 campaign, but both looked rather sheepish on the podium. 

In the end, the big winner was Tiago Monteiro, a Portuguese rookie driving for Jordan. 

His best finish had been a pair of 10th places across the first eight rounds, these being the days of only the top eight receiving points. 

But on the day F1 shredded itself, Monteiro had his day of days as he took third place for his one and only grand prix podium. 

He was criticised for his celebrations on the podium, but as he pointed out, he didn't know when another would arrive. It never did. 

Elsewhere, Narian Karthikeyan took fourth in the sister Jordan - those five points being the only ones ever scored in F1 by an Indian driver as Christijan Albers and Patrick Freisacher's combined seven points was more than it had scored between 1996-2005.

But the look on the faces of the bumper crowd was a stunned silence. As the realisation set in, some lobbed beer cans, water bottles and pretty much anything else that looked as if it could fly over the guardrail. 

Not quite the Mutiny on the Bounty, but it takes a long time to build up trust, and as F1 discovered that Sunday afternoon, even quicker to lose it.