1994: Larrousse

Towards the end of 1994, Larrousse was, like a number of other teams at the time, running short of money and needed pay drivers to keep the team afloat.^[5] Larrousse's number 19 car, which had started the year being driven by Olivier Beretta, was now being driven by drivers who could bring sponsorship money to the team.^[5] For the final race of the year in Australia, Larrousse let the aero-car inexperienced, physically unfit Delétraz replace Érik Comas in the team's second car for more sponsorship money in order to aid their financial situation.^[5]

During qualifying, Delétraz qualified in 25th position, ahead of Simtek's Domenico Schiattarella.^[2] However, Schiattarella overtook him during the first lap of the Grand Prix, and Delétraz gradually dropped back from the rest of the field. He retired on lap 57 with gearbox failure, after he had already been lapped ten times. He was lapping the circuit six seconds slower than the leaders, two seconds slower than his teammate Hideki Noda and 1–2 seconds slower than the next slowest driver Schiattarella. He was described by BBC commentator Jonathan Palmer as "having no business in Formula One."^[6]

Yes Delétraz, really, here having no business in Formula One. And demonstrating it there: he's spending all of his modest effort, frankly, keeping the car on the road. He's holding up Gerhard Berger there, who has now lost a second on Nigel Mansell, in the Larrousse. This is, I'm afraid, one of the problems of the Grand Prix season - at the end of the year we do get one or two drives being taken by people who've got more money than talent, and that's one example of it.

— Jonathan Palmer, BBC broadcast of the 1994 Australian Grand Prix - transcript of recording from F1 Rejects

1995: Pacific

Pacific Team Lotus started with shareholder Bertrand Gachot and Andrea Montermini as its drivers, but similar to Larrousse the previous year, the team needed pay drivers to continue the season and Gachot vacated his seat.^[7] It was announced that Delétraz would be competing in the final five races of the season.^[2]

During qualifying for his first round of the year, in Portugal, Delétraz was hindered by a gearbox problem which saw him qualify last, twelve seconds behind pole-position sitter David Coulthard. In the race, Delétraz was 40 seconds behind Coulthard after 3 laps, and was lapping the circuit 12 seconds slower than the leaders and 6–7 seconds than the next slowest driver Roberto Moreno in a Forti and 7–8 seconds slower than his team-mate Montermini. He was lapped by the leaders after seven laps of the race, and after fourteen he retired from the race with cramp in his left arm. This drew criticism as Estoril is a clockwise circuit, which requires more work from the right arm. In his second race at the Nürburgring, he qualified just over nine seconds behind pole-position, and he finished the race in fifteenth place as the last finisher, seven laps behind the winner. At one point while he was being lapped by the leaders, Delétraz suddenly darted his car across the track from one side to the other and back again, prompting BBC commentator Murray Walker to exclaim "And what is Delétraz doing? Doesn't matter what he's doing."^[9]

At the next race, he was replaced by Bertrand Gachot after planned replacements were denied superlicenses. It had been expected that Delétraz would be competing until the end of the season, but he defaulted on payment and Keith Wiggins, principal of the Pacific team stated, "On ability alone, we are not willing to keep him."^[2]

The slow qualifying speeds of drivers like Delétraz resulted in the introduction of the 107% rule for the 1996 season - with some F1 fans nicknaming the new regulation the "Delétraz rule" as a result.