Olivier Panis calls it a day

It was exactly ten years ago today that Olivier Panis announced that he was formally ending his Formula One career.

Panis made his début at the 1994 Brazilian Grand Prix with the Ligier team. He took his first podium during his maiden season with second place at Hockenheim, and in 1996 he famously pulled off a remarkable victory at the Monaco Grand Prix (pictured above) despite starting from 14th place on the grid. Wet weather helped him to make up multiple moves and he timed his switch to slick tyres to perfection. In the end he was one of only three drivers to finish (the others being David Coulthard and Johnny Herbert.)

Panis continued with the team when it was bought by former world champion Alain Prost in 1997, but he suffered a high speed accident at Canada which left him with two broken legs. He would later spend two seasons at BAR and another two at Toyota Racing, but he lost his full-time race seat at Toyota at the end of 2004 and spend the following season as a test and development driver with the team.

He finally called time on Formula One in 2006 and has since raced in sports cars with four outings in the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Team Oreca between 2008 and 2011. These days his time spent at motor racing circuits tends to be in support of his son Aurélien who has been working his way up through the various Formula Renault championships, and who could yet bring the Panis name back to Formula One at some point in the future.

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.