French racing driver (born 1966)
Olivier Jean Denis Marie Panis
[1]
(
French pronunciation:
[?.li.vje
pa.nis]
; born 2 September 1966) is a French former racing driver. Panis raced in
Formula One
for ten seasons, earning his first and only win at the
1996 Monaco Grand Prix
for the
Ligier
team. Panis' manager has been
Didier Coton
[
fr
]
.
He is the father of racing driver
Aurelien Panis
.
[2]
Career
[
edit
]
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
[
edit
]
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
Eric 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.
He earned another surprise second place at the
1995 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 Hakkinen
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
.
[3]
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.
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 Hakkinen
. He was rumoured to replace
David Coulthard
for the
2000 Spanish Grand Prix
after his plane crash, however Coulthard was cleared to race. 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 Raikkonen
to score a debut point.
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.
[4]
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 Hakkinen, 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 in the field.
Sports cars
[
edit
]
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
[5]
and participated in the
Andros Trophy
ice race
.
[6]
He had an appearance in an episode of
Top Gear
, facing the team in an ice race, where he was jokingly referred to in the intro as 'France's second-best racing driver', presumably to
Alain Prost
.
In 2016 Panis formed his own
sports car racing
team, Panis Barthez Competition, alongside professional
footballer
turned racing driver
Fabien Barthez
. The pair entered cars in the
European Le Mans Series
and the
Blancpain GT Series
, overseen by
Tech 1 Racing
, before Barthez stepped down at the end of 2019.
[7]
[8]
Panis Racing subsequently picked up two consecutive podiums in the
LMP2
class of the
24 Hours of Le Mans
, in 2020 and 2021.
TDS Racing
took over from Tech 1 as operational partner in 2024, a year that also saw the team strike a sponsorship deal with
Marc VDS
.
[9]
Racing record
[
edit
]
Career summary
[
edit
]
Complete International Formula 3000 results
[
edit
]
(
key
) (Races in
bold
indicate pole position) (Races
in
italics
indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One results
[
edit
]
(
key
) (Races in
bold
indicate pole position; races in
italics
indicate fastest lap)
†
Did not finish, but was classified as he had completed more than 90% of the race distance.
Complete GT1 World Championship results
[
edit
]
24 Hours of Le Mans results
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
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- Eugene Martin
(
1950
)
- Charles Pozzi
(
1950
)
- Raymond Sommer
(
1950
)
- Eugene Chaboud
(
1950
?
1951
)
- Pierre Levegh
(
1950
?
1951
)
- Henri Louveau
(
1950
?
1951
)
- Guy Mairesse
(
1950
?
1951
)
- Philippe Etancelin
(
1950
?
1952
)
- Yves Giraud-Cabantous
(
1950
?
1953
)
- Robert Manzon
(
1950
?
1956
)
- Louis Rosier
(
1950
?
1956
)
- Maurice Trintignant
(
1950
?
1964
)
- Aldo Gordini
(
1951
)
- Georges Grignard
(
1951
)
- Andre Simon
(
1951
?
1952
,
1955
?
1957
)
- Marcel Balsa
(
1952
)
- Elie Bayol
(
1952
?
1956
)
- Jean Behra
(
1952
?
1959
)
- Roger Loyer
(
1954
)
- Jacques Pollet
(
1954
?
1955
)
- Jean Lucas
(
1955
)
- Mike Sparken
(
1955
)
- Andre Guelfi
(
1958
)
- Francois Picard
(
1958
)
- Jean Lucienbonnet
(
1959
)
- Bernard Collomb
(
1961
?
1964
)
- Guy Ligier
(
1966
?
1967
)
- Johnny Servoz-Gavin
(
1967
?
1970
)
- Jean-Pierre Beltoise
(
1967
?
1974
)
- Jo Schlesser
(
1968
)
- Henri Pescarolo
(
1968
,
1970
?
1974
,
1976
)
- Francois Cevert
(
1970
?
1973
)
- Max Jean
(
1971
)
- Francois Mazet
(
1971
)
- Jean-Pierre Jarier
(
1971
,
1973
?
1983
)
- Francois Migault
(
1972
,
1974
?
1975
)
- Patrick Depailler
(
1972
,
1974
?
1980
)
- Jose Dolhem
(
1974
)
- Gerard Larrousse
(
1974
)
- Jean-Pierre Jabouille
(
1974
?
1975
,
1977
?
1981
)
- Jacques Laffite
(
1974
?
1986
)
- Michel Leclere
(
1975
?
1976
)
- Patrick Tambay
(
1977
?
1979
,
1981
?
1984
)
- Didier Pironi
(
1978
?
1982
)
- Rene Arnoux
(
1978
?
1989
)
- Patrick Gaillard
(
1979
)
- Alain Prost
(
1980
?
1991
,
1993
)
- Jean-Louis Schlesser
(
1983
,
1988
)
- Francois Hesnault
(
1984
?
1985
)
- Philippe Streiff
(
1984
?
1988
)
- Philippe Alliot
(
1984
?
1990
,
1993
?
1994
)
- Pascal Fabre
(
1987
)
- Yannick Dalmas
(
1987
?
1990
,
1994
)
- Pierre-Henri Raphanel
(
1988
?
1999
)
- Eric Bernard
(
1989
?
1991
,
1994
)
- Olivier Grouillard
(
1989
?
1992
)
- Jean Alesi
(
1989
?
2001
)
- Erik Comas
(
1991
?
1994
)
- Paul Belmondo
(
1992
,
1994
)
- Jean-Marc Gounon
(
1993
?
1994
)
- Franck Lagorce
(
1994
)
- Olivier Panis
(
1994
?
1999
,
2001
?
2004
)
- Jean-Christophe Boullion
(
1995
)
- Stephane Sarrazin
(
1999
)
- Franck Montagny
(
2006
)
- Sebastien Bourdais
(
2008
?
2009
)
- Romain Grosjean
(
2009
,
2012
?
2020
)
- Charles Pic
(
2012
?
2013
)
- Jean-Eric Vergne
(
2012
?
2014
)
- Jules Bianchi
(
2013
?
2014
)
- Esteban Ocon
(
2016
?
2018
,
2020
?present)
- Pierre Gasly
(
2017
?present)
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