On at the present time in 2006, certainly one of motorsport’s most interesting films hit the large display. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby tells the story of a NASCAR driver combating to avoid wasting a profession threatened by a French Formulation 1 driver named Jean Girard. I not too long ago launched this traditional of American cinema to some buddies abroad, however my re-watching of it left me with one urgent query: Throughout the confines of the Talladega Nights universe, would Jean Girard have entered the notorious 2005 United States Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway?

Permit me to determine some context, for anybody unfamiliar with what I’m investigating. A mere six vehicles took the beginning of the 2005 U.S. Grand Prix owing to the failure of Michelin’s tires; mainly, the street course used somewhat little bit of IMS’s oval banking, and the Michelin tires couldn’t deal with the pressure. At that cut-off date, mid-race tire adjustments had been banned, and there was no means a Michelin-shod group would have been capable of safely full a full race distance. So, the six vehicles that took the beginning of the race got here from three groups related to Bridgestone, whose tires truly managed to face up to the calls for of the observe. These groups had been Ferrari, Jordan, and Minardi.

Jean Girard’s introduction to the movie is iconic for numerous causes, however on my most up-to-date rewatch, I used to be focusing much less on him breaking Ricky Bobby’s arm than I used to be on the clips of Girard’s supposed F1 profession.

The footage is clearly some early 2000s F1 motion between a Minardi and a Renault, however to be completely optimistic I used to be working from essentially the most knowledgeable place potential, I turned to my good pal Sean Kelly, who you might know as @virtualstatman on social media, to extra exactly decipher the clip. He informed me, “The footage in that clip is from the 2004 European GP on the Nurburgring. It seems to be Gianmaria Bruni’s Minardi main Jarno Trulli’s Renault.”

It’s not absolutely clear which automobile Girard is meant to be driving, and Talladega Nights provides no further context, however neither driver was terribly spectacular in 2004. Trulli scored one win to complete sixth general within the 2004 Formulation 1 World Drivers Championship. Bruni competed in each single occasion, failed to attain a single level, and was categorised as twenty fifth general — ranked behind 5 drivers who solely contested a partial season.

The matter of Girard’s group is crucial — however maybe not as crucial because the timeline. Is Talladega Nights set in 2005, implying that the movie can be launched the next yr, in 2006? Or is the film set in 2006? I wanted to seek the advice of the archives to seek out out.

Filming for the film passed off in 2005, and the 2005 UAW Ford 500 served as an precise, real-life setting for a big quantity of footage that includes each NASCAR machines and crowds. That occasion was held on October 2, 2005 — or, a number of months after the disastrous June 19, 2005 operating of the US Grand Prix. If the movie’s massive finale passed off in 2005, then that reductions Girard from having raced within the 2005 U.S. Grand Prix. Nevertheless, it’s totally presumably that Girard’s final substitute was there for the race, and that Girard would have been happy to not be concerned in such a farcical occasion.

I’ll be sincere: I used to be somewhat bit dismayed at my very own discovery. The one factor that might additional elevate Talladega Nights in my eyes can be the truth that certainly one of its characters was concerned in F1’s most embarrassing screw-up.

Sadly, it isn’t to be. Jean Girard would have been competing in NASCAR in 2005 — not Formulation 1.

I, nonetheless, am not content material with that information alone. Presuming that Girard had a handful of years in F1, he would have been current for a few of these different iconic moments:

• Ferrari’s disqualification from the 1999 Malaysian Grand Prix on account of violating technical laws, adopted by its reinstatement, which deeply influenced the title battle
• The debut of future World Champions Jenson Button, Kimi Raikkonen, and Fernando Alonso, alongside CART Champion Juan Pablo Montoya’s debut
• Michael Schumacher’s dominant 2002 season, which led to quite a few synthetic leisure options the next yr
• The introduction of the HANS machine as a type of obligatory security gear
• Schumacher’s ultimate World Championship
• The 2002 Austrian Grand Prix, the place Ferrari was accused of manipulating the result of the race

If solely Jean Girard had caught it out in Formulation 1 for one ultimate yr.