Panis to retire from F1; replacement is Montagny

Another F1 retirement and a place for Montagny - that will be a loss for Henri Pescarola in LMP1 for Le Mans in 2007 (perhaps they can work something out):

Panis retires at the end of the season

Olivier Panis will retire from Formula One duty at the end of the season after deciding not to renew his Toyota testing contract.

The Frenchman, who won the Monaco Grand Prix in 1996, has expressed a desire to get back to racing after three years of testing for the Japanese car manufacturer.

"Toyota has made much progress and I am happy to have been a part of this," said Panis. "The team was always very motivated and still is. I am really positive about the job the whole team has done and will miss everyone I have worked with, yet I know that it is time for me to move on and fulfil my wish to race again.

"I am looking forward to new racing challenges outside Formula One but I will keep a close eye on Toyota's performance and hope they achieve all the success they deserve."

Toyota paid tribute to Panis' input to the team, and confirmed that Franck Montagny would likely replace him.

Team Principal Tsutomu Tomita said: "We are very thankful to Olivier for the high level of commitment he put into working with the whole team all along our four years of collaboration.

"His technical experience and human qualities greatly contributed to our team development as much as to the improvement of its overall performance. We understand and accept his desire to continue racing. We thank him for sharing his know-how and will support him in whatever he chooses to do."

As well as Montagny, the team are hoping to promote one of their young drivers to the team to help out with testing duties.

Carol

 

I could cope with JPM, I could deal with JV, I could live with MS, but now loosing Panis is too much!

I'm still in shell shock over Klien, just as I got over my addiction with Ide. But loosing Panis, I can't bare the thought.

F1 isn't F1 anymore. And now they even want to demote Montagny. We won't see the only Frenchman in the grid anymore?! What has the world come to! Zut alors!

 

Losing JPM while keeping Jarno Trulli, Ralf Schumacher at Toyota seems kinda silly to me. I remember JPM kinda wiped the floor with RS after the first half of the initial season at Williams BMW. Hopefully soon Fisi will be gone and Nelson Piquet Jr. will be promoted to his race seat.

 

Translation: I have to find something else to do; this team is going nowhere...

 

LOL!
Panis finally realized it, now that they fired Gascoyne and kept their looser driver lineup.

 

I read somewhere (Autosport?), that Panis would spearhead the Peugeot team in endurance next year.
Panis has quite a lot of experience as a tester, and could be usefull to Peugeot to de-bug their new diesel contender, although, as far as I know, his experience in sportscar is nil.

 

Thank you for the memories Panis! Great work and best of luck for the future!

 

I would love to see that happen but we can only hope they make that decision.

 

You have memories of Panis? Really?

Hmm, lemme see there was a victory in Monaco and then a big shunt in Montreal. Anything else?

 

Yeah Andreas he used to move over real quick when MS was lapping him. J/K actually Panis had a decent season prior to his big shunt in Canada.

 

And he raced a...Prost. Anybody who's done that deserves a medal.

 

I remember walking through the paddock at midnight before Panis' MC victory and seeing his mechanics working away on his car, despite the late hour (this was long enough ago that you could still stroll the paddock at will). My then-wife and I laughed at how frustrating it must be to slave away until dawn on a car with no shot at a podium- guess who had the last laugh!? By the way, I met Panis a few years back (he's a friend of a friend), and he was quite a nice guy.