3. Olivier Panis Canada 1997
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i7yO7IzFYY After a very promising start to the 1997 season with Prost, formerly Ligier, Olivier Panis was looking on the cusp of becoming a leading driver. Following his win at Monaco the previous year, he was threatening the front of the grid and looked as though he might take a pole position or race win soon against the leading Williams and Ferraris. After losing the back end of his car, Panis was buried in the tyre wall, crushing the nose of his car and breaking both his legs. The race toured under the safety car for some laps before being red flagged, awarding the win to Schumacher. Panis was extracted from the car and then taken to hospital for surgery. Implications Primarily, it highlighted the need to increase the strength of the nose in Formula 1 cars to protect the drivers, given tyre barriers are intended to do exactly what they did here by absorbing the impact. Cars improved shortly after this, and accidents following this showed a vast improvement in leg protection, with the last incident being Michael Schumachers leg break at the 1999 British Grand Prix. Sadly however, it cut short the seemingly unstoppable growth of Panis to becoming a new French Formula 1 superstar. Panis had surgery to insert pins into his legs and he missed the following seven races of the season, returning for the final three of the year. Whilst he was hampered by poor cars and had odd moments of excellence, he was never the same driver again, and fundamentally was unable to reach the heights we knew he was capable of.