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“When it’s your day”

24. May 2020 
by Ziv Knoll
2630 views

Monaco Grand Prix 1996, Olivier Panis‘ day of glory.

Every driver wants to win the Monaco Grand Prix. Achieving the feat is not easy, especially if you’re starting 14th on a grid of 22, in a car that is handy but top of the midfield at best.

Olivier Panis remembers: “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.”

Even with the rain belting it down, no one was considering Ligier and Panis as contenders for the podium, let alone the race victory. Even when the frenchman went quickest in warm up, Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill, who locked out the front row, were clear favorites.

“When I did the best lap time in warm up, people thought we didn’t have much fuel in the car,” says Panis.

“Even Flavio [Briatore, who had acquired the team and signed Panis] came to see us. ‘How many kilos did you have in the car?’ We told him the number. He said: ‘You have the right fuel for the strategy, this is unbelievable!’

“We knew we had the pace. When you start 14th in Monaco, anything can happen, anything is possible.”

“On Saturday in qualifying, we had an electronics problem, otherwise we could have started in the top five. My race engineer started so disappointed, because he knew we were quick, and he felt our chance was lost. I said ‘don’t worry man, the race is tomorrow, you never know what can happen.”

The rain had stopped but the track was wet when the race began. And while cars slid into the barriers – like Schumacher – or succumbed to mechanical failures – like Gerhard Berger – Panis quietly went about his business, passing seven cars.

“We were competitive,” he says. “I could feel it. The car was amazing.”

Soon Panis was third, with Benetton’s Jean Alesi and race leader Hill in the Williams well clear. But then Hill’s engine expired and Alesi ran into trouble with his suspension, forcing him out of the race. That promoted Panis into the lead. “I could see my car on the TV screens as I drove by,” he says.

“And I could see how much support I had. So in my mind, I was just thinking – don’t crash the car! There were some moments where it was very close. But I managed to keep safe.”

It wasn’t plain sailing once he was in the lead, though. With 10 laps to go, he was told he didn’t have enough fuel to finish the race.

“I said: ‘Look, just tell me the time I need to do each lap to finish the race with the fuel I have in the car,” he says. “Every lap, I saved a lot of fuel. I didn’t use sixth gear, I didn’t push each gear on the upshift.

“I knew David Coulthard was chasing me but when he got close, I pushed a bit more to show him there was no way he was passing me.

“I said to Flavio and the guys, ‘if I’ve made a mistake [by not pitting], I’ll take the responsibility to say I’m stupid. But if we do that we lose. We need to try and win.’

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“My engineer agreed. He told me exactly what I need to do lap by lap. All the lights were flashing. I said – ‘No, don’t let me down now!’ But I wasn’t stressed. I believed in my engineer and I believed I could do it.”

“I stopped the car in front of the podium, and the car never started again, because there was no more fuel! When it’s your day, it’s your day.”

That victory was Olivier Panis’ first and only F1 triumph. It was all the more special because it was a Frenchman, winning for a French team, in Monaco. No Frenchman has won in F1 since.

“It was a completely crazy race and one that I will never, ever, forget.”

 

Source: DR

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