Olivier Panis may be one of the best examples of shock winners in Formula 1, as demonstrated by his memorable Monaco victory on 19 May 1996.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the Frenchman – a five-time podium finisher in midfield machinery – and his talent, but the struggling Ligier outfit wasn’t exactly a victory contender at the time.

As a matter of fact, the JS43 never qualified higher than eighth in 1996 – in Spain courtesy of Panis, who outqualified wealthy team-mate Pedro Diniz 15-1 that year.

Coming into the sixth round of the season in Monaco, Panis had been flirting with the points-scoring positions, which were restricted to the top six at the time. Attrition meant he had finished seventh in Australia, sixth in Brazil and eighth in Argentina, having run eighth at Imola before retiring due to a gearbox issue.

But Panis qualified down in 14th in Monte Carlo, having encountered electronics trouble from his second of four possible runs. Teams did have a third car at the time, but team-mate Diniz crashed both his own machine and the spare, so Panis was unable to make the switch.

Olivier Panis, Ligier

Photo by: LAT Images via Getty Images

Interestingly, the Ligier driver went quickest in a somewhat unrepresentative warm-up session on Sunday morning, and felt bullish about what was to come.

“When I woke up in the morning, I cheered when I opened the windows and I saw the rain,” Panis told F1’s official site.

“I said to my wife, ‘I’ll finish on the podium today’. She said: ‘Yeah, yeah. I think you’re crazy, you’re starting 14th in Monaco!’

“I said: ‘Yeah, but it’s raining, and you never know what is going to happen! I believed in it. I just convinced myself it was possible.”

“When I did the best lap time in the warm-up, everybody thought we had low fuel and blah blah blah, all the bulls*** all the time people are talking, and I was so confident and so happy with my car and… I let the people talk.”

Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher had taken a remarkable pole position from championship leader Damon Hill, with a half-a-second gap, as the Benettons of Jean Alesi and Gerhard Berger made up the second row.

Race start

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However, Schumacher’s sluggish getaway on a wet track handed the lead to Hill, and five drivers crashed out on the opening lap – including the German, who uncharacteristically lost control on the run down to Portier and hit the outside wall, breaking his front suspension.

Hill led from Alesi, Berger and Schumacher’s team-mate Eddie Irvine, with Panis up to 12th. A gearbox issue took the Austrian out of the race from third position while Heinz-Harald Frentzen damaged his front wing trying to pass Irvine; in the meantime, Panis overtook Martin Brundle, Mika Hakkinen and Johnny Herbert, making his way up to seventh.

The track was drying and Panis was among the first cars to pit for slicks, undercutting Mika Salo, championship runner-up Jacques Villeneuve and David Coulthard. A few laps later, Panis dove down the inside of Irvine in the Loews hairpin, nudging the Ferrari towards the wall and forcefully snatching third position away.

Olivier Panis, Ligier

Photo by: Paul-Henri Cahier / Getty Images

Still, halfway through the race, victory looked but an elusive dream, with Panis 49 seconds behind Hill and 22 seconds down on Alesi. But a warning light showed up on the Briton’s dashboard and an engine failure eventually struck him down on lap 41. Then, 20 tours later, a rear suspension failure ended Alesi’s hope for a second F1 victory.

“I overtook seven cars in the wet,” Panis told Autosport in somewhat hyperbolic fashion, “and after my pitstops, I made some more places. Everything I tried was a bit of a risk – when I passed Irvine I touched him and I thought I’d destroyed the front wing, but it was OK and I knew it was my day!”

“I was so destroyed, you know,” one-time grand prix winner Alesi told F1. “When I came out of the car, I went to my mechanics and I was just very sad. I was personally more affected because I wanted not just to win the race, also to start a winning process with Benetton. And that never happened.”

Having survived a spin on Hill’s oil, Panis led Coulthard by five seconds with 15 laps remaining; Herbert, Villeneuve, Hakkinen and Salo were close together, but over 20 seconds down.

Chaos perdured. Villeneuve, who had qualified only 10th and was having a mediocre weekend given Williams’ dominance, collided with the race’s backmarker, Luca Badoer, when lapping the Forti driver.

“I wasn’t thinking about the win at that point, I didn’t have the pace, but it was [about] getting as many points on Damon as possible,” Villeneuve told F1. “Obviously, crashing with a backmarker – a guy who was five laps down – was very frustrating. I wasn’t fighting anyone for position, it was just a question of reaching the end of the race and scoring the points.

Jacques Villeneuve, Williams

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“He kind of left the door open, so I went in, and halfway through the corner, he decided to close it, and I got squished between him and the wall, and broke my front suspension.

“That was typical Monaco, because until the last lap, you just didn’t know if the standings would change.”

Irvine went on to spin precisely where Ferrari team-mate Schumacher had crashed earlier on, and despite the yellow flag being waved, the Ulsterman was hit by Salo, as Hakkinen ran into his fellow Finn.

Just four cars remained in contention: Panis, Coulthard, Herbert and Frentzen. But the Ligier racer’s lead on the McLaren was down to two seconds; fortunately for him, it wouldn’t dwindle much more.

“In the final six laps, my engineer called me and said, ‘You need to stop, you are not fuelled enough.’ I said, ‘What? No way!’ I continued and tried to save fuel,” Panis related, still speaking to Autosport. “They were coming over the radio in English, Italian and French, everyone trying to get me in – even Flavio [Briatore], who was team boss at the time.

“I carried on saving fuel, even though I had DC very close behind me, and made the finish. I stopped the car on the finish line for the podium and we tried to restart the car afterwards – it never did, it was totally empty. When you are lucky, everything is possible!”

Olivier Panis, Ligier

Photo by: Paul-Henri Cahier / Getty Images

Some luck definitely was involved. Panis savvily stopped using sixth gear, resorted to lifting and coasting, and the two-hour limit proved useful as the chequered flag was waved three laps early.

As the Monaco Grand Prix winner, the Frenchman was invited to the dinner hosted by Prince Rainier that night, in keeping with tradition. He never expected to win and hadn’t brought a suit, so had to acquire one at the last minute.

There were more attire-related shenanigans. “With Mika we ended up at Rascasse bar as the sun was coming up,” Coulthard told F1. “I had the kilt on for going to the gala dinner, and at the end of the night, Mika was wearing the kilt and I was wearing the suit, so everything got a bit crazy.”

Regardless, it was Ligier’s first victory since Jacques Laffite won the 1981 Canadian GP – and the last, carrying particular significance. “It was fantastic for me and for the team because it meant they could sell the team for more,” Panis told Autosport. “Alain Prost tells me I am the driver who cost him the most!”

Alain Prost, Prost Grand Prix, Olivier Panis, Prost Grand Prix

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Four-time world champion Prost indeed acquired the team a few months later – with little success, most of which came courtesy of Panis.

In 1997, Panis’ early-season heroics provided two podium finishes on merit, but his momentum was brutally halted by a Montreal crash in which he broke both legs.

Having become France’s 12th grand prix winner as he scored the country’s 79th triumph in Monaco, Panis also spent the next 24 years being repeatedly asked by French media about his status as France’s latest victor. When would a French driver finally succeed him?

Eventually, another unlikely scenario unfolded at the 2020 Italian GP, as a fortunately timed pitstop vaulted Pierre Gasly into the lead of the race – and the AlphaTauri driver did not falter. For France, the wait was over.

Pierre Gasly, Alpha Tauri

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar

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