Formula One: The Last French Hope

When it came down to writing an article on which driver's potential hadn't been filled, I had a lot of drivers to choose from.

The list includes Jean Alesi, Gilles Villeneuve, Stirling Moss, Chris Amon, John Watson, Ronnie Petersen, Giancarlo Fisichella, Riccardo Patrese, Juan Pablo Montoya, Peter Collins and Francois Cevert.

After much thinking, I decided to go for a driver who had his time in the limelight cruelly taken away from him.

Olivier Panis was a driver who stood out for many during his time racing in the lower formulae in France. After winning several kart championships, he graduated into Formula Renault in 1987 and took the title there in 1989.

He moved up to French F3 in 1990 with a best championship finish of second in 1991. For 1992, he graduated in the F1 feeder series of Formula 3000, and continuing the trend of two seasons in a series, he claimed the championship after a great season-long battle in 1993.  After taking the title, it was a natural step to move up to the world of Formula 1, and he signed with the Ligier Renault team for 1994.

For many, he was the new French hope, with Alain Prost retiring at the end of 1993. Prost had claimed a fourth world title, and the other French drivers in the field were on lower-ranked teams.

Olivier had a solid if not spectacular start to his F1 career, finishing his first six races with a best finish of seventh in Spain before recording his first F1 DNF at his home race in France.

But in Germany a spate of retirements, where 11 cars failed to finish the first lap, gave Olivier the chance to score his first F1 points—a chance he wasn't going to miss.

A number of other retirements for the leading drivers left Olivier in second place at the finish behind Gerhard Berger. Despite only scoring another three points all season, France had a new hero to watch out for, one who drove a French car with a French engine. It was a possible match made in heaven for Les Bleus.   But for 1995, it was all changed. Out had gone the Renault engine to Benetton, and in had come Mugen-Honda engines.

It was a much stronger year for Olivier, as he began scoring regular points and out-scoring the second Ligier, which was shared between Aguri Suzuki and Martin Brundle.

He scored fourth at both Canada and Britain, and at the season-ending race in Australia it once again came good. Despite finishing two laps behind race-winner Damon Hill, Olivier managed to score another second place ahead of Gianni Morbadelli in the Arrows, despite his engine failing over the last few laps.

It left Olivier going into 1996 full of optimism, and a sixth place in Brazil got him one point over the first five rounds.  But everything was to change for him at Monaco. Having qualified 14th, the best Olivier could probably hope for on the narrow streets was for retirements in front of him to claim a point or two.

But on race day, the heavens opened and left the track soaked for the race, giving Olivier reason for optimism. On the first lap, both Verstappen and Schumacher crashed into the carrier promoting Olivier two places, and further retirements from Katayma, Barrichello and Diniz elevated Panis further.

After 10 laps, following a string of retirements and some good manoevres from Olivier, he found himself in fourth behind Eddie Irvine in the Ferrari. After several laps of frustration behind Irvine, he forced his way past at Lowes Hairpin and into fourth place.

Then Damon Hill retired with an engine failure and Jean Alesi with a gearbox problem, leaving Oliver leading the race with David Coulthard in second and Johnny Herbert third.

With the race hitting the two-hour limit, only 75 laps were run and Olivier had claimed a popular win—his first in F1 and Ligier's first since 1981. He only scored two more points for the rest of the season, but the breakthrough had been made.  For 1997, Alain Prost had bought over the team, and Olivier started the season with fourth place at the season opener in Melbourne. Then he finished third at the next race in Brazil, before challenging Jacques Villeneuve for victory in Argentina before a throttle problem caused his retirement.

An impressive fourth in the wet at Monaco, followed by an equally impressive second place at the following race in Spain, left Olivier sitting in third in the championship behind the big two of Schumacher and Villeneuve.   But then his season, and his career, took a turn for the very worst in Montreal. Having qualified 10th, he was involved in a first-corner altercation with McLaren's Mika Haikkinen, resulting in a lost front wing and a trip to the pits.

After exiting the pits, Olivier once again showed just how good he and the car was that year by coming through the field and managing to climb from 20th to 11th before having to pit with a vibration problem.

Following this stop he was once again at the back, but once again Olivier came storming through the field and had got up to seventh by lap 51 when it all went wrong.

Coming out of Turn 4, Olivier was entering the fast sweeping Turn 5 when he lost the back end of the car—strange given that this section was easily flat out.

He clipped the inside wall before sliding across the track into the tyres on the outside of the sweep, destroying the front of his car and bringing out the red flags.

It was later revealed that he had suffered suspension failure having clipped a wall a few laps earlier, and the result was two broken legs and three months of healing and rehabilitation.  It was a bitter blow to both team and driver, who had been making huge progress over the season. Olivier missed seven races due to injury, being replaced by future team-mate Jarno Trulli, and returned at the Nurburgring to score a point on his return.

But it was obvious that he wasn't the driver he was before the crash. He had a 12-inch pin inserted into each leg after the breaks and didn't get these removed until the 1998-99 off-season, by which time he had completed the 1998 season without a point.

1999 proved to be not much better, and he was replaced by Jean Alesi for the 2000 season. After spending 2000 testing for McLaren, a year in which he revived his reputation, Olivier drove for two seasons with BAR before finishing his F1 career with Toyota, finally retiring in 2004.   He was never the same after his crash in Montreal. Before that he had shown real promise, and had, in the minds of the French, became a natural replacement for Alain Prost.

He still remains the last French driver to win an F1 Grand Prix, but when Olivier's career is looked back on, many will say that his competitive F1 career ended in that tyre barrier at Turn 5 in Montreal.