Olivier Panis

Olivier Panis

June 2009
Born	(1966-09-02) September 2, 1966 Oullins, Lyon, France
Formula One World Championship career
Nationality	French
Active years	1994–1999, 2001–2004
Teams	Ligier, Prost, McLaren (Test Driver), BAR, Toyota
Entries	158 (157 starts)
Championships	0
Wins	1
Podiums	5
Career points	76
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0
First entry	1994 Brazilian Grand Prix
First win	1996 Monaco Grand Prix
Last win	1996 Monaco Grand Prix
Last entry	2004 Japanese Grand Prix
24 Hours of Le Mans career
Participating years	2008–2011
Teams	Team Oreca Matmut
Best finish	5th (2009)
Class wins	0

Olivier Panis (born 2 September 1966 in Oullins, Lyon) is a French professional racing driver. Panis drove in Formula One for ten seasons, scoring one win at the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix for the Ligier team. As of 2015, he is the last French driver to win a Formula One Grand Prix.

He is the father of racing driver Aurélien Panis.

Career

Born in Oullins, Lyon, Panis, like many Formula 1 racing drivers, raced karts early in his career. After graduating from karts, Olivier raced several years in a number of "junior" series before racing in French Formula 3. He won a championship in Formula Renault in 1989 and finished second in French Formula 3 in 1991. He eventually found himself in Formula 3000, and he won the series' championship there in 1993.

Formula One

The 27-year-old Panis earned an F1 drive in 1994 for the French-based Ligier team. He made his debut at Brazil, finishing eleventh. He earned a surprise second place that season at Hockenheim ahead of teammate Éric Bernard, and finished 11th in the standings for the marque. He finished every race except France. He was however disqualified in Portugal for illegal skid block wear.

Panis driving for Ligier at the 1995 British Grand Prix.

The following year in 1995, he earned another surprise second place at the Australian Grand Prix, in spite of being two laps behind the leader Damon Hill, and he also added a handful of fourths to his resume, giving him an 8th-place finish in the championship.

Panis took a shock win in the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix. Starting 14th on a wet track, Panis passed other rivals on the narrow circuit, including Martin Brundle, Mika Häkkinen and Johnny Herbert, and timed his change onto slick tyres perfectly. He overtook Eddie Irvine at the Lowes Hairpin and was running in third place before the Williams-Renault of Damon Hill and Benetton-Renault of Jean Alesi both hit terminal technical difficulties. One of only 3 cars to finish the race, (Brits David Coulthard and Johnny Herbert being the other two) Panis held off a late charge from Coulthard to win. The race finished on 75 of the 78 scheduled laps due to the two-hour time limit being reached. Panis' victory was the Ligier team's first victory in 15 years (and their last), and it was the first French victory in a French car at Monaco in 66 years. However, it was the only highlight to his 1996 season, and he otherwise failed to do any better than 5th place in Hungary.

Panis had the potential for a big season in 1997 while driving for Alain Prost, who had purchased Ligier. On Bridgestone tyres, he took the tyre company's first podium at Brazil. He was running second in Argentina before retirement. After 6 races, he stood third in the championship thanks to another podium finish with second place in Spain. A win could have been possible in that race had he not been held up lapping backmarkers for seven laps, losing him a total of 6 seconds to leader Jacques Villeneuve. At the 1997 Canadian Grand Prix, he broke both legs in a high speed accident, causing him to miss the next seven races of the season. His place in the team was taken by Jarno Trulli, until he returned for the final three races of the season. He achieved sixth place at Luxembourg and appeared to show that he had fully recovered from his accident, as he drove as well as he had done before the crash. Despite missing half of the year, he still managed 9th in the championship with 16 points.

Panis driving for the Prost Formula One team in Montreal in 1998

1998 would prove to be a difficult season for Panis. He failed to score a single point for the Prost team, primarily due to a poor quality car. However, his full potential was restricted by the pins which remained in his legs, a legacy of the surgery following his crash in 1997. The highlight of the season was a ninth-place finish in Australia, although he also ran strongly at the 1998 Canadian Grand Prix until car failure intervened. An indicator of the team's problems in 1998 was the solitary point scored by Panis' team-mate Jarno Trulli at Spa-Francorchamps.

The following year saw an improvement for the partnership. A stronger car, and unusual circumstances, saw an irregular return to form for the Frenchman. After a troubled race he still claimed 6th in Brazil, a feat he repeated at Hockenheim. He began to qualify much more strongly, with a third place in France, fifth at the Nurburgring, and sixth at Suzuka, where he spent the first stages of the race in third. Despite the signs of a return to form in 1999, strategical errors and misfortune restricted his points tally. Irrespective of the improvements, Panis ended his relationship with the Prost team.

Panis was a consideration to drive for Williams, a team that was in a state of flux at the time, but turned it down to test for McLaren. This helped showcase Panis to other top teams in F1, where he would regularly match the testing times of regular drivers David Coulthard and double World Champion Mika Häkkinen. Due to this he landed a drive with BAR for 2001. BAR wasn't the top team he had hoped, and he finished in 14th place during both of the years he was there, scoring a total of 8 points. His highest finish for BAR was in Brazil with fourth position. He had been fourth at his debut race for the team in Australia but was penalised for a yellow flag infringement which added twenty five seconds to his race time and put him seventh, and enabled Kimi Räikkönen to score a debut point.

Olivier Panis driving for Toyota at the 2004 United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis, his 150th Grand Prix.

Panis left for Toyota's racing team in 2003. He was signed to drive and provide the second-year team his knowledge, as well as help his new Brazilian teammate, Cristiano da Matta, learn the ropes of F1. Early results were an improvement, in part because he handled the new one-lap qualifying well, but the end result wasn't much different from previous seasons, as he was 15th with 6 points.

Panis remained with Toyota for 2004, his tenth season in Formula One. In early October 2004 he announced his intention to retire from racing following the 2004 Japanese Grand Prix; he planned to continue at Toyota as a test driver in 2005 and 2006. Before his retirement, he was the oldest active driver in F1 at the age of 37. 2004 saw him again score only 6 points, before being replaced for Brazil by his Brazilian teammate test driver Ricardo Zonta.

He was the nominated third driver for Toyota in France in 2005, but this was the last time he participated competitively at a Grand Prix weekend. On 18 September 2006, Panis announced his complete retirement from F1 in order to race in other disciplines. His final outing as a Formula 1 test driver took place at Jerez, Spain on 14 December 2006.

Panis was highly regarded for his racecraft. He was also considered by the likes of Häkkinen, who was particularly upset when Panis left the McLaren testing team to return to full-time driving, to be one of the best test-drivers on the field.

Sport cars

Panis driving for Oreca at the 2010 1000 km of Spa.

He returned to racing in 2008 with the Oreca Courage team in the Le Mans Series. He has also worked as a consultant for the French A1 Grand Prix team and participated in the Andros Trophy ice race. He had an appearance in an episode of Top Gear, facing the team in an ice race, and was jokingly referred to in the intro as 'France's second-best racing driver', presumably second to Alain Prost.

Racing record

Complete International Formula 3000 results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	DC	Points
1992	Apomatox	Reynard/92D	Ford Cosworth	SIL 3	PAU Ret	CAT 7	PER Ret	HOC 20	NÜR Ret	SPA Ret	ALB Ret	NOG Ret	MAG 2	10th	10
1993	DAMS	Reynard/93D	Ford Cosworth	DON 3	SIL 6	PAU Ret	PER Ret	HOC 1	NÜR 1	SPA 1	MAG 10	NOG Ret		1st	32

Complete Formula One results

(key)

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	WDC	Points
1994	Ligier Gitanes Blondes	Ligier JS39B	Renault RS6 3.5 V10	BRA 11	PAC 9	SMR 11	MON 9	ESP 7	CAN 12	FRA Ret	GBR 12	GER 2	HUN 6	BEL 7	ITA 10	POR DSQ	EUR 9	JPN 11	AUS 5				11th	9
1995	Ligier Gitanes Blondes	Ligier JS41	Mugen Honda MF301 3.0 V10	BRA Ret	ARG 7	SMR 9	ESP 6	MON Ret	CAN 4	FRA 8	GBR 4	GER Ret	HUN 6	BEL 9	ITA Ret	POR Ret	EUR Ret	PAC 8	JPN 5	AUS 2			8th	16
1996	Ligier Gauloises Blondes	Ligier JS43	Mugen Honda MF301HA 3.0 V10	AUS 7	BRA 6	ARG 8	EUR Ret	SMR Ret	MON 1	ESP Ret	CAN Ret	FRA 7	GBR Ret	GER 7	HUN 5	BEL Ret	ITA Ret	POR 10	JPN 7				9th	13
1997	Prost Gauloises Blondes	Prost JS45	Mugen Honda MF301HA/B 3.0 V10	AUS 5	BRA 3	ARG Ret	SMR 8	MON 4	ESP 2	CAN 11	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	AUT	LUX 6	JPN Ret	EUR 7			9th	16
1998	Gauloises Prost Peugeot	Prost AP01	Peugeot A16 3.0 V10	AUS 9	BRA Ret	ARG 15	SMR 11	ESP 16	MON Ret	CAN Ret	FRA 11	GBR Ret	AUT Ret	GER 15	HUN 12	BEL DNS	ITA Ret	LUX 12	JPN 11				NC	0
1999	Gauloises Prost Peugeot	Prost AP02	Peugeot A18 3.0 V10	AUS Ret	BRA 6	SMR Ret	MON Ret	ESP Ret	CAN 9	FRA 8	GBR 13	AUT 10	GER 6	HUN 10	BEL 13	ITA 11	EUR 9	MAL Ret	JPN Ret				15th	2
2001	Lucky Strike BAR Honda	BAR 003	Honda RA001E 3.0 V10	AUS 7	MAL Ret	BRA 4	SMR 8	ESP 7	AUT 5	MON Ret	CAN Ret	EUR Ret	FRA 9	GBR Ret	GER 7	HUN Ret	BEL 11	ITA 9	USA 11	JPN 13			14th	5
2002	Lucky Strike BAR Honda	BAR 004	Honda RA002E 3.0 V10	AUS Ret	MAL Ret	BRA Ret	SMR Ret	ESP Ret	AUT Ret	MON Ret	CAN 8	EUR 9	GBR 5	FRA Ret	GER Ret	HUN 12	BEL 12	ITA 6	USA 12	JPN Ret			14th	3
2003	Panasonic Toyota Racing	Toyota TF103	Toyota RVX-03 3.0 V10	AUS Ret	MAL Ret	BRA Ret	SMR 9	ESP Ret	AUT Ret	MON 13	CAN 8	EUR Ret	FRA 8	GBR 11	GER 5	HUN Ret	ITA Ret	USA Ret	JPN 10				15th	6
2004	Panasonic Toyota Racing	Toyota TF104	Toyota RVX-04 3.0 V10	AUS 13	MAL 12	BHR 9	SMR 11	ESP Ret	MON 8	EUR 11	CAN DSQ	USA 5	FRA 15	GBR Ret									14th	6
		Toyota TF104B													GER 14	HUN 11	BEL 8	ITA Ret	CHN 14	JPN 14	BRA
2005	Panasonic Toyota Racing	Toyota TF105	Toyota RVX-05 3.0 V10	AUS	MAL	BHR	SMR	ESP	MON	EUR	CAN	USA	FRA TD	GBR	GER	HUN	TUR	ITA	BEL	BRA	JPN	CHN	-	-

Complete GT1 World Championship results

Year	Team	Car	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	Pos	Points
2010	Matech Competition	Ford	ABU QR	ABU CR	SIL QR	SIL CR	BRN QR	BRN CR	PRI QR 18	PRI CR Ret	SPA QR	SPA CR	NÜR QR	NÜR CR	ALG QR	ALG CR	NAV QR	NAV CR	INT QR	INT CR	SAN QR	SAN CR	60th	0

24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2008	Team Oreca-Matmut	Marcel Fässler Simon Pagenaud	Courage-Oreca LC70-Judd	LMP1	147	DNF	DNF
2009	Team Oreca-Matmut AIM	Nicolas Lapierre Soheil Ayari	Oreca 01-AIM	LMP1	370	5th	5th
2010	Team Oreca-Matmut	Nicolas Lapierre Loïc Duval	Peugeot 908 HDi FAP	LMP1	373	DNF	DNF
2011	Team Oreca-Matmut	Nicolas Lapierre Loïc Duval	Peugeot 908 HDi FAP	LMP1	339	5th	5th

External links

• Olivier Panis Official website

Sporting positions
Preceded by Ludovic Faure	Championnat de France Formule Renault Champion 1989	Succeeded by Emmanuel Collard
Preceded by Luca Badoer	International Formula 3000 Champion 1993	Succeeded by Jean-Christophe Boullion