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Olivier Panis is a proven winner, having taken a magnificent first grand prix victory at a rain-sodden Monaco in 1996 with an uncompetitive Ligier. He had started 14th place on the grid - a feat unheard of at the famous street circuit.
After a solid apprenticeship in the junior formulae, winning the backing of Elf, his career really took off when he started to clean up in Formula 3000. He won the European championship in 1993, ahead of the likes of David Coulthard and ChampCar king Gil de Ferran, and stepped up to F1 with the all-French Ligier team the following year.
That debut year was a success. His consistency was rewarded with a superb second at Hockenheim, where a huge first-lap collision left him clear to follow Berger home. In 1995 he finished a career-best eighth in the championship, ending the season with another runner-up spot, albeit two laps down, at Adelaide.
The following year was Panis' finest yet, with victory at Monaco cementing his place as F1's brightest young talent. When Alain Prost took over at Ligier, he quickly installed Panis as team leader, and early season optimism looked to be well-placed after two rostrum finishes and a charge that nearly overcame Jacques Villeneuve's Williams at Barcelona.
However, disaster struck at Montreal when an accident left Olivier with two broken legs that shattered his and Prost's momentum. He was soon back in the cockpit, but the next two years saw a rapid decline in the team's progress.
After scoring just three points in 1998-99, Olivier accepted the chance to become McLaren's test driver in 2000 and thereby hopefully rebuild his career. The fact that McLaren boss Ron Dennis was reluctant to let Olivier go when BAR originally wanted to sign him is a sure sign of his driving credentials.
Panis pushed his French/Canadian team-mate hard in 2001, often out performing the 1997 World Champion, and great things were expected from him in 2002.
Unfortunately poor reliability, particularly suffered during qualifying, internal politics and some questionable strategy meant that Olivier had a difficult season. Round 8 (Canada) was the first time the Frenchman brought the BAR home following a string of retirements. Indeed of the 1090 race laps in 2002, Olivier only completed 697 (63.94%).
However it wasn't all doom and gloom, at Silverstone Olivier finished fifth behind Villeneuve to give the Brackley outfit its first points of the season.
The Frenchman's best performance was at Monza, where against the odds he made his two-stop strategy work to his advantage. For much of the season he'd opted for a one-stop strategy but the pace of the BAR meant that he lost too much ground to his rivals running with lighter loads.
For 2003 Olivier moved to Toyota where his vast experience was much in demand, especially since his team-mate was to be F1 rookie, but reigning CART Champion Cristiano da Matta.
Olivier performed well but was once again plagued by poor reliability. Of 1018 race laps the Frenchman completed only 691 (67.88%), the only drivers to suffer worse reliability were Justin Wilson and Heinz-Harald Frentzen.
Over the course of the season, Olivier's average qualifying position was tenth, his best grid position being third at Indianapolis. However a retirement list that included; fuel pump, gearbox, suspension, fuel pressure and brakes, left the Frenchman clearly frustrated. That said, he performed well and gave team-mate da Matta a good run for his money, though it was the Brazilian who finished higher in the championship table.
For 2004, Olivier remained with Toyota, and thankfully reliability was considerably improved on 2003. That said, the car wasn't good and the team resigned itself to waiting for the 2005 car, technical director Mike Gascoyne's first 'creation' for the Japanese outfit.
Nonetheless, Olivier gave some great performances, though there were a number of silly mistake, usually at the start of races.
On the whole, he gave a good account of himself and out-classed teammate da Matta, who was subsequently dropped by the team and replaced by Jarno Trulli.
Being the oldest driver on the grid in Melbourne it was fairly obvious that 2004 would probably be the Frenchman's last season in F1, certainly as a racer. Therefore it didn't come as too much of a surprise when the Cologne based outfit revealed that Olivier would join Ricardo Zonta as the team's test driver for 2005.
After the rules were changed to allow any driver to undertake Friday third driver duties Olivier had a one-off outing on home ground at Magny-Cours. He also became the first driver to try the Toyota V8 on a circuit, spearheading a development programme that began at Jerez in July.
"I was very happy when Mike Gascoyne and Luca Marmorini gave me the V8 programme last year," said the Frenchman. "It was a nice change from just doing tyres! When I saw the results with the new car, and the latest step of the engine, I was very happy."
It was a logical step to retain Olivier as test driver again in 2006, his fourth year with the Japanese team. However, there was little that the Frenchman, or anyone else, could do to improve the TF106
In mid-September, Toyota revealed that Olivier was retire at the end of the season, bringing his career to a close.
Since entering F1 in 1994, Olivier contested 158 Grands Prix with Ligier, with whom he made his debut, Prost, BAR and Honda. Few will forget the victory at Monaco in 1994, but one cannot help but wonder what might have been had it not been for that awful accident at Montreal a year later.
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