McLaren in F1 Canadian Grand Prix chaos: The win, the disqualification and the apology

Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Canada — Photo: © IMAGO

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McLaren in Canadian Grand Prix chaos: The win, the disqualification and the apology

A quite incredible day of drama at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

Graham Shaw Consultant Editor

Digital sports specialist running global brands for 30 years

Sunday 24 May 2026 15:57

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The F1 Canadian Grand Prix is no stranger to controversy, but the McLaren mayhem which headlined the 2005 race may just take the biscuit.

As the sport once more descends on the iconic Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal for the 2026 race later today, that incredible afternoon some 21 years ago was a talking point again this week.

It was a race which had absolutely everything with McLaren claiming a win, having a driver disqualified and then issuing a post-race apology.

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When the teams lined up on the grid in Quebec back on June 12, 2005 there was huge anticipation in the air. The race would draw a new record TV audience of 51million viewers worldwide and none of them would be disappointed by an afternoon which was box-office entertainment from start to finish.

QUALIFYING RESULTS: Canadian GP times and grid positions

Disqualification drama for Montoya (again)

The drama really began on Lap 49 with Colombian star Juan Pablo Montoya leading McLaren team-mate Kimi Raikkonen by around 3 seconds at the front of the race. But Jenson Button crashing into the ‘Wall of Champions’ brought out a safety car, and things got very messy.

Every car on the track took the opportunity to pit apart from one - that would be Montoya, forced to wait another lap while Raikkonen was being refuelled. If that was not bad enough for the Colombian superstar, things were about to get even uglier.

Soon after slipping back into the field in second position behind Raikkonen, the news came through that Montoya was now under investigation by the stewards for exiting the pits while a red light was showing (as the safety car was on the pit straight). He would be subsequently black-flagged and disqualified from the race.

At this stage Montoya must have felt truly cursed in Montreal - incredibly it was the second consecutive year he had been disqualified from the Canadian Grand Prix. Then with Williams, Montoya had his fifth place removed in 2004 for having illegal brake ducts.

Montoya was disqualified in Canada in 2004 and 2005.

Raikkonen wins, but you wouldn’t have known

Raikkonen would go on to win the race for McLaren, salvaging something from the day for the Woking team. But back in the team’s garage, it did not feel like a victory.

Mark Slade, Raikkonen’s race engineer at the time, gave a shocking insight into the mood within the team on a podcast with Peter Windsor this week.

He revealed: “I remember walking back into the office after the race, and it was like somebody had died and I remember standing up and saying ‘Come on everybody, we just won this f-ing race’.

“It was an indication of the atmosphere within the team at the time. Kimi winning was no longer thought of as being a great thing for some bizarre reason within the team.

“I mean sure, everyone was a bit annoyed that they screwed up but I didn’t feel that ignoring the fact that we’d won the race with Kimi’s car…and remember this was the year that Juan Pablo had injured himself earlier in the season, so he was effectively out of the running for the championship.”

Raikkonen claimed the win, but there was no celebration.

The Ron Dennis apology

As the dust began to settle on a tumultuous afternoon in Montreal, then McLaren chairman Ron Dennis would go public with an apology to the crestfallen Montoya.

“We decided to slow the pace of both cars after Kimi's developed an apparent slight steering problem.

"After the Renaults went out of the race Juan Pablo and Kimi were driving for a one-two finish and were not racing each other. Managing that is not as simple as you might think because there were two guys who wanted to race and that inevitably put a bit of tension onto the pit wall.

"The team personnel who managed Juan Pablo's car just missed the call with the result that he did not come in as we intended him to. He then exited the pits under a red light, but it is the stewards who determine the penalty, but at the end of the day a black flag is disqualification and we have to accept it.

"As a team we have to apologise to Juan Pablo, but perhaps that was balanced by his rejoining the circuit against the red light."

A day that was symptomatic of McLaren malaise - Slade

Slade says the whole day was symptomatic of what he saw as the problems within McLaren at the time.

“Anyway, it was a very bizarre situation that’s all I can say, indicative of things that were going on in the team at the time,” he continued.

“It was a precursor of the Lewis [Hamilton]/Fernando [Alonso] situation that we got a few years later. It was to do with the people who were running the team, and the atmosphere that they seemed to believe was the right way to do things. And it absolutely wasn’t.

“It was not fun actually, it was not fun.”

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Written by

Graham Shaw - Consultant Editor

Digital sports leader with 30 years of senior level experience running global brands. Built sportinglife.com to be a behemoth in the UK as well as being in charge of the Planet Sport network of sites including planetf1.com, football365.com, teamtalk.com and planetrugby.com. Then grew goal.com to be the world's biggest soccer website in 18 languages and 37 territories. Was GM of Portals for Perform Group (now DAZN) with overall responsibility for sportingnews.com, spox.de and voetbalzone.nl.

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F1 McLaren Canadian Grand Prix Juan Pablo Montoya Circuit Gilles Villeneuve Kimi Raikkonen