The last-all French F1 pairing that reunited a title-winning duo

When Franck Lagorce was chosen to replace Johnny Herbert at Ligier for the final two rounds of the 1994 Formula 1 season, his debut couldn’t have come under more challenging circumstances.

Suzuka is about as difficult a circuit as they come, and that’s when drivers can see where they’re going. The Japanese Grand Prix that year was held in utterly appalling conditions that would almost certainly not have been started today. To then follow that up with the tricky Adelaide street track, another circuit new to the 1992 French Formula 3 champion, meant Lagorce was on something of a hiding to nothing.

But one consolation, aside from the fact that he could at least call himself a grand prix racer, was the identity of the driver on the other side of the garage also tasked with hustling the reliable if none-too-quick Ligier-Renault JS39B. The driver Lagorce today picks out as his favourite team-mate was well known to him from their time together in the junior categories.

Two years his senior, Olivier Panis had been a French F3 rival in 1991 with a La Filliere Ralt-Alfa Romeo while Lagorce campaigned a Promatecme Dallara-Opel. In a strong year for the championship, won by future Le Mans winner Christophe Bouchut’s Graff Ralt-VW, Panis finished second with Lagorce the best rookie in fourth before the former stepped up to Formula 3000 for 1992. Lagorce meanwhile remained with Promatecme to win the crown, seeing off team-mate Emmanuel Clerico, Olivier Thevenin’s KTR Ralt and Jean-Christophe Boullion’s Graff-run Bowman-VW.

For 1993, when Lagorce arrived in the F1 feeder category with DAMS, he was teamed up with Panis and the pair quickly formed a productive working relationship to aid the squad in its transition from Lola to Reynard chassis.

While Lagorce cites his Panoz sportscar team-mates David Brabham and Jan Magnussen as “fantastic guys” and enjoyed his brief stint with Mark Webber and Pedro Lamy on the ill-starred 1999 Mercedes CLR Le Mans programme, Panis is his clear choice when it comes to choosing a favourite team-mate and remains a good friend today.

“Definitely it was Olivier,” says Lagorce. “All the time we go in the same way. Never we do something wrong about him or me. And it was very clear all the time about the adjustment of the car, about the session [plan]. He push, I push; I push, he push. With Olivier it was fantastic.”