Nationality- French
Born- September 2nd 1966 in Lyon, France
Lives- Grenoble France
Married- yes to Anne
Kids- yes one called Aurelien
Teams- Ligier/Prost (1994-1999) Mclaren (Test driver 2000) and British American Racing (2001)
Starts- 91
First GP- Brazilian GP 1994
Wins- 1
Poles-0
Fastest laps-0
Points-56
F1 World Championships- 0 (8th in 1995)
Honours-
1989- French Formula Renault Champion
1991- French Formula three Runner up
1993- Formula 3000 Champion
Olivier Panis entered F1 in 1994 as a hopeful young gun who made a fairly big impression. He finished 15 of the 16 Grand Prix’s that year showing how good he was at keeping the car pointing the right way on the track. He also outperformed his more experienced team mate Eric Bernard at almost every race and scored more points than him. He also came 2nd in the German GP. He did however have a penchant for jumping starts which led directly to the FIA installing electric detection sensors on every grid position!. He found it more difficult in 1995 though with Martin Brundle as his team mate but he did pretty well against him. He took another 2nd place in the Australian GP.
In 1996 Panis took his first and only win to date in the wet Monaco GP. Although it was a race of nutrition were people were crashing of all over the place Olivier kept his head and his car on track and came through from 14th on the grid to win. Overtaking Eddie Irvine in the Ferrari in tremendous style by coming up the inside of him at Loews and pushed him out the way. Needless to say Eddie wasn’t impressed but the rest of the world was. Apart from that though 1996 was a disappointing season for him as the Ligier car wasn’t really up to scratch.
In 1997 Panis broke his legs because of a rear suspension failure that pitched him into the barriers at the Canadian GP. It destroyed a season that seemed to be going incredible well as he was third in the championship and had a second place in Spain and had retired from second in the Argentine GP were he probably would have won. He was also 5th in Australia, 3rd in Brazil and 4th in Monaco then came the day he broke his legs in Canada. However he was back racing before the end of 1997 and scored a point at his first race back at the European GP. The Prost car was a disaster in 1998 and 1999 and his career was slowed. In 2000 he took up a role as Mclaren test driver to get a year out of racing and rebuild his career. He was impressive at the test sessions out performing regular Mclaren drivers Coulthard and World Champion Hakkinen and was signed by British American Racing as Team mate to Jacques Villeneuve ( the 1997 world champion) for 2001. We’ll have to wait and see how he goes but with the Honda engines in that BAR I can imagine that the answer will be bloody fast!.
Panis pictures
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