This event, the twelfth round of the WRC season, was supposed to see Sebastien Loeb win his second consecutive title but was marred by the death of Markko Märtin's co-driver Michael Park, who died after Märtin's Peugeot 307 crashed into a tree on Stage 15 of the rally. Märtin had finished all the previous rallies of the 2005 season and his streak tragically ended with loss of life.
Loeb did not want to win the championship in the wake of this accident so deliberately incurred a two-minute penalty allowing Petter Solberg and Phil Mills, the 2003 champions, to win the Rally GB for the fourth straight year, but instead of celebrating on the podium, held a minute's silence for Park at the Millennium Stadium.
Also, Colin McRae scored his first WRC points since his return, which turned out to be final points in the sport, as he died in 2007 after a one-off drive in 2006 in the #1 Xsara, replacing the injured Loeb. Another local driver, Mark Higgins, driving the Ford Focus RS WRC '04, scored his second points finish in the WRC with eighth.
Märtin retired from WRC after this, refusing to continue after what has been dubbed one of the saddest days in WRC history. After the crash, an emotional Markko said "Park wasn't my co-driver, I was his pilot."