Sidepodcast - All for F1 and F1 for all

On This Day: May 19th 2005 - Trulli dreams of winning - Examining the stark differences between Jarno's 2004 and 2005 seasons

Published by Christine

I was browsing through news from days gone by and uncovered an article where, in 2005, Trulli was approaching Monaco with the memories of a win the previous year, hoping against hope that he could do it again. It didn't happen and the two races could not have been more different.

2004 was a year dominated by Ferrari - 13 wins for Schumacher, and 2 for Barrichello - leaving just three races to be won by a different team. Trulli, for Renault, was the first of these.

He qualified on pole position, whilst Schumacher was back in fourth. The race suffered two false starts, firstly because of a stalled Toyota, and then because of some leakage from Trulli's Renault. That was a worrying omen, I'm sure, but once things got going, Trulli led the way fine. He began the race with Alonso and Schumacher hustling for position behind him, but several safety car periods later, Alonso had crashed out in a collision with one Schumacher brother, whilst the other had tangled with Montoya.

That left Trulli defending his position from Button - a rare glimpse of the future champion's fighting spirit, perhaps? Trulli secured his first, and only, victory that afternoon - standing on the top step of the Monaco podium. He went on to finish the year in sixth place in the driver's championship, and in a Toyota - having switched teams with two races to go.

Fast forward one year, and Jarno couldn't even make it into the points. He qualified fifth, but pole position went to Räikkönen in the McLaren - who led for a relatively uneventful race. The safety car was only deployed once, and some clever strategy from Kimi secured his win, whilst Jarno languished in tenth. He still managed to stay third in the championship at that point, following two second place podium finishes at earlier races. He finished the year seventh overall.

There were only four more podiums on the cards for Trulli at Toyota, and this year he has made the move to Lotus Racing after the Japanese team withdrew from the sport. The chances seem very slim that he will revisit his winning ways, let alone repeat the Monaco dream.