OLIVIER PANIS   

Biography
Olivier Panis will return to Formula 1 this year with BAR after a
season's sabbatical in which he acted as McLaren's test driver.

Ron Dennis was full of praise for Panis' contribution to McLaren's
effort last season and was loath to let him go when the offer a race seat came in from BAR.

But like all drivers Panis wants to race and BAR's offer was too good to turn down. The 34-year-old's reputation has been thoroughly re-built after a year of testing his mettle against Coulthard and Hakkinen.

In fact Olivier has almost single-handedly created a trend for
experienced and quick F1 test drivers. Alex Wurz will take over the McLaren test berth next season, while the man Panis replaces at BAR, Ricardo Zonta, will do the job for Jordan.

Panis first came to the attention of F1 team managers in 1993 when he beat the likes of Coulthard and newly-crowned ChampCar king Gil de Ferran to the F3000 championship.

He joined Ligier in 1994 and soon began to gain a reputation as a quick and consistent performer. His best result that season was a second place in an attrition-hit German GP.

His finest hour in F1 came in 1996 when he took his first, and so far, only grand prix victory at a rainy Monaco.

Alain Prost took over Ligier for the start of 1997 and Panis was looking on course for his best-ever season after he pushed Jacques Villeneuve hard for victory in the Spanish Grand Prix. But disaster struck at
Montreal when Olivier crashed, breaking both his legs.
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Last Major Update April 2001