I have followed Formula 1 for the majority of my relatively short life, but it’s a life long enough to have heard a myriad of questions and debates asked about the sport. One of the questions asked is the question of who have been Britain’s greatest drivers. The usual suspects are; Stirling Moss, Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart and Nigel Mansell. A name seldom-mentioned in such debates is Graham’s son, Damon Hill.
Damon Hill’s unorthodox path to F1 culminated in bagging a dream drive – team-mate of Alain Prost at Williams-Renault. It was to be his first full season in F1, having driven a handful of races for the ailing and now-defunct Brabham team in 1992. Despite being comfortable with his role as number two to the thrice World Champion Prost, Damon Hill could have mounted a championship challenge of his own, and doubled his total number of race wins – three. Commanding wins in Hungary, Belgium and Italy that season could’ve been added to had fate not dealt him such a cruel hand on a number of occasions over the season. He ran close behind Prost in Spain before engine failure; the same problem forced him into retirement at the British Grand Prix when comfortably leading and, with less than a lap-and-a-half to go at the next race in Germany, Hill’s left-rear tyre blew, sending him spinning out with the flag practically in sight. The season ended with Hill finishing a creditable third in the championship standings.
In 1994, Damon Hill was elevated to the role of Williams’ number one driver after the death of Ayrton Senna at the San Marino Grand Prix. He showed considerable character to pull the team together – much like father Graham at Team Lotus in 1968 after the death of Jim Clark – and managed to eat away at the commanding championship lead of Benetton’s Michael Schumacher. With two races to go, the gap was only five points in Schumacher’s favour. In a restarted race on aggregate timing in treacherous weather in Japan, Hill claimed his sixth win of the season, and became one in a very short list of drivers to outdrive Schumacher in the rain. Despite losing the championship with a controversial and infamous collision with Schumacher at the finale in Adelaide, Hill’s popularity rose in Britain and cemented his place as the best British driver on the grid at that time.
1995 was a season-long struggle for Hill and Williams. Despite Hill leading the championship early on, the challenge of Schumacher and Benetton – now also equipped with Renault engines – proved too strong, and despite a series of high-profile incidents with Schumacher and retirements, Hill took commanding wins that season at San Marino, Hungary and Adelaide. Hill, now well aware that 1996 was his best, and possibly last chance of winning a title, hired a new trainer and was able to match Schumacher – now with less-competitive Ferrari – for fitness. Despite the strong challenge of new debutant French-Canadian team-mate Jacques Villeneuve, Hill drove a series commanding race wins that season, including the title-decider in Japan, to finally become the first son of a World Champion to be champion himself. But by then, Hill’s fate at Williams was decided – he was replaced by German Heinz-Harald Frentzen, and Hill signed for the largely uncompetitive Arrows team for ’97.
Hill made the most of the inferior car at his disposal, finishing an impressive 6th at the British Grand Prix, and driving one of the races of his life at Hungary. Qualifying third, Hill overtook Villeneuve and, with the Arrows’s Bridgestone tyres gaining advantage over the degrading Goodyear-running Ferrari, Hill, to the disbelief of many, muscled Schumacher’s Ferrari aside and took the lead. He built up a comfortable lead and stayed there until the final lap, where his throttle linkage failed, and was subsequently overtaken by Villeneuve, but managed to limp home in a still-remarkable second.
For 1998, Damon signed for the ever-increasingly competitive Jordan outfit, and scored a number of impressive points finishes, before taking his final career win in Belgium, where he led home a Jordan 1-2 finish. Admittedly, 1999 was not a happy season for Damon. Struggling for pace under new rule changes as team-mate Frentzen mounted an outside challenge for the title, it would perhaps be appropriate that Damon’s last two points finishes in F1 would be at Silvertone, Hungary and Spa – the scenes of past triumphs – before a curtain came-down on an eight-year career that, despite being unconventional and never lacking incident and drama, cemented Damon Hill’s place as one of Britain’s best Grand Prix drivers.
Thank you for reading. Please take a moment to follow me on Twitter – @jackinho92. Support LWOS by following us on Twitter – @LastWordOnSport and @LWOSworld– and “liking” our Facebook page.
For the latest sports injury news, check out our friends at sports injury alert.
Have you tuned into Last Word On Sports Radio? LWOS is pleased to bring you 24/7 sports radio to your PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone. What are you waiting for?
