On this present day in 2006, one in every of motorsport’s best motion pictures hit the large display. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby tells the story of a NASCAR driver preventing to save lots of a profession threatened by a French Method 1 driver named Jean Girard. I just lately launched this traditional of American cinema to some pals abroad, however my re-watching of it left me with one urgent query: Inside 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 ascertain 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; principally, the highway course used a bit of 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 modifications have been banned, and there was no approach a Michelin-shod crew would have been in a position to 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 resist the calls for of the monitor. These groups have 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 constructive I used to be working from probably the most knowledgeable place doable, I turned to my good good friend Sean Kelly, who you might know as @virtualstatman on social media, to extra exactly decipher the clip. He instructed 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 gives no further context, however neither driver was terribly spectacular in 2004. Trulli scored one win to complete sixth general within the 2004 Method 1 World Drivers Championship. Bruni competed in each single occasion, failed to attain a single level, and was labeled as twenty fifth general — ranked behind 5 drivers who solely contested a partial season.

The matter of Girard’s crew is important — however maybe not as important because the timeline. Is Talladega Nights set in 2005, implying that the movie could be launched the next 12 months, 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 happened in 2005, and the 2005 UAW Ford 500 served as an precise, real-life setting for a major 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 working of the US Grand Prix. If the movie’s large finale happened in 2005, then that reductions Girard from having raced within the 2005 U.S. Grand Prix. Nevertheless, it’s completely 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 trustworthy: I used to be a bit of bit dismayed at my very own discovery. The one factor that would additional elevate Talladega Nights in my eyes could be the truth that one in every 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 Method 1.

I, nonetheless, am not content material with that data 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 because of violating technical rules, 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 various synthetic leisure options the next 12 months
• The introduction of the HANS system 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 Method 1 for one ultimate 12 months.