Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Motorsport
Ben McCrum
The most dangerous race in Formula One caused a series of dramatic crashes and saw a shock name finish on top of the podium.
Formula One returns this weekend for perhaps the most iconic race on the calendar, the Monaco Grand Prix.
The 2025 race will be the 70th staging of the Monaco F1 GP. which has been a part of the calendar since the motorsport began in 1950, becoming a permanent race fixture from 1955, apart from during the Covid season in 2020 season.
In this time, 37 different winners have won the iconic race, including home hero Charles Leclerc who finally broke the 'Monaco curse' and became the first Moneasque F1 driver ever to win the race last season.
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But there is one Monaco GP winner who stands out from the rest after he claimed victory in what has been labelled as the most dangerous F1 race of all time.
As the 22-man grid lined up for the Monaco GP 29 years ago, nobody could have anticipated the chaos that was due to unfold during the race ahead.
Several dramatic crashes, and torrential rain allowed French driver Olivier Panis claiming his first, and only, F1 race win despite starting in 14th.
Panis was driving for Ligier, who had not won an F1 race for 15 years, was one of only three drivers to finish infamous race, with British pair David Coulthard, who drover for McLaren, and Sauber’s Johnny Herbert the other two.
The Frenchman's seemingly bizarre decision to start the wet race with full fuel, despite the fact it would slow him down, ended up winning the race as it allowed him to get past drivers like Michael Schumacher , Damon Hill, and Mika Hakkinen.
Jos Verstappen, father of current champion Max, was the first driver to be taken out of the race as he crashed just seconds into the first lap.
And he wasn't the only one who returned to the pits early, as Giancarlo Fisichella, Pedro Lamy and Schumacher also lost control early in the race.
After five laps of the 1996 race, there were only 13 drivers left on track and by the end, only four remained.
Panis' decision to run with a full fuel tank meant that he was the first to cross the line, with Coulthard in second and Herbert in third, while Heinz-Harald Frentzen was forced to pull off into the pits moments before finishing.
Speaking to The Daily Mail about the race in 2017, Panis said: "Wherever I am, it is Monaco people want to speak about,’ he says with a smile, as he settles down in the library of the Hotel Francois 1er, just off the Champs Elysee in Paris.
"I’m proud of this; it is part of my life. The track is not a race track, it is many streets and they have so much history to tell.
"After this victory, it is true I have a different level of respect - and it gave me many more years to do my job. Monaco is a mythical Grand Prix, a trial of strength and madness."