Damon Graham Devereux Hill, OBE (born 17 September 1960) is a British former professional racing driver from England and the 1996 Formula One World Champion. He is the son of Graham Hill, and, along with Nico Rosberg, one of two sons of a Formula One World Champion to also win the title. He started racing on motorbikes in 1981, and after minor success moved on to single-seater racing cars.[1]
Hill became a test driver for the Formula One title-winning Williams team in 1992. He was promoted to the Williams race team the following year after Riccardo Patrese's departure and took the first of his 22 victories at the 1993 Hungarian Grand Prix. During the mid-1990s, Hill was Michael Schumacher's main rival for the Formula One Drivers' Championship, which saw the two clash several times on and off the track. Their collision at the 1994 Australian Grand Prix gave Schumacher his first title by a single point. Hill became champion in 1996 with eight wins, but was dropped by Williams for the following season. He went on to drive for the less competitive Arrows and Jordan teams, and in 1998 gave Jordan their first win.[2]
Hill retired from racing after being dropped by Jordan following the 1999 season. In 2006, he became president of the British Racing Drivers' Club, succeeding Sir Jackie Stewart. Hill stepped down from the position in 2011 and was succeeded by Derek Warwick. He presided over the securing of a 17-year contract for Silverstone to hold Formula One races, which enabled the circuit to see extensive renovation work.[3] Hill currently works as part of the Sky Sports F1 broadcasting support team providing expert analysis during free practice sessions.
Personal and early life
Hill was born in Hampstead, London, to Graham and Bette Hill. Graham Hill was a racing driver in the international Formula One series. He won the world Drivers' Championship in 1962 and 1968, and became a well-known personality in the United Kingdom. Graham Hill's career provided a comfortable living. Bette (née Shubrook) was a former rower and medalist at the European Rowing Championships.[4] By 1975 the family lived in a "25-room country mansion" in Hertfordshire and Damon attended the independent The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School.[5] The death of his father in an aeroplane crash in 1975 left the 15-year-old Hill, his mother, and sisters Samantha and Brigitte in drastically reduced circumstances.[6] Hill worked as a labourer and a motorcycle courier to support his further education.[7]
Hill is married to Susan "Georgie" George and they have four children, including Joshua.[8] One son was born with Down syndrome and Hill and Georgie are both patrons of the Down's Syndrome Association.[9] In 2009, Hill also became the first patron of St. Joseph's Specialist School and College, a school for children with severe learning disabilities and autism in Cranleigh, Surrey.[10] Joshua started racing in 2008,[11] competing in the British Formula Renault Championship in 2011.[12] Joshua retired from motor racing in 2013.[13]
Hill is the Patron of the charity Disability Africa which runs inclusion projects for disabled children in African countries. [14]
Career
Pre-Formula One
Hill started his motorsport career in motorcycle racing in 1981. He used the same simple, easily identifiable helmet design as his father: eight white oar blades arranged vertically around the upper surface of a dark blue helmet. The device and colours represent the London Rowing Club for which Graham Hill rowed in the early 1950s.[15] Although he won a 350 cc clubman's championship at the Brands Hatch circuit,[16] his racing budget came from working as a building labourer. He also worked as a dispatch rider for Apollo Despatch in London, then later Special Delivery, a London motorcycle dispatch company and was provided TZ350 racing bikes by them.[17] His mother, who was concerned about the dangers of racing motorcycles, persuaded him to take a racing car course at the Winfield Racing School in France in 1983.[18] Although he showed "above-average aptitude",[17] Hill had only sporadic single-seater races until the end of 1984. He graduated through British Formula Ford, winning six races driving a Van Diemen for Manadient Racing in 1985, his first full season in cars, and finishing third and fifth in the two UK national championships. He also took third place in the final of the 1985 Formula Ford Festival, helping the UK to win the team prize.[19]
For 1986, Hill planned to move up to the British Formula Three Championship with title-winning team West Surrey Racing. The loss of sponsorship from Ricoh, and then the death of his proposed teammate Bertrand Fabi in a testing accident, ended Hill's proposed drive. Hill says "When Bert was killed, I took the conscious decision that I wasn't going to stop doing that sort of thing. It's not just competing, it's doing something more exciting. I'm at my fullest skiing, racing or whatever. And I'm more frightened of letting it all slip and reaching 60 and finding I've done nothing."[20] Hill borrowed £100,000 to finance his racing and had a steady first season for Murray Taylor Racing in 1986 before taking a brace of wins in each of the following years for Intersport. He finished third in the 1988 championship.[21]
In Europe in the 1990s, a successful driver would usually progress from Formula Three either directly to Formula One, the pinnacle of the sport, or to the International Formula 3000 championship. However, Hill did not have enough sponsorship available to fund a drive in F3000. He says "I ended up having to reappraise my career a bit. The first thing was to realise how lucky I was to be driving anything. I made the decision that whatever I drove I would do it to the best of my ability and see where it led."[22] He took a one-off drive in the lower level British F3000 championship and shared a Porsche 962 at Le Mans for Richard Lloyd Racing, where the engine failed after 228 laps.[23] He also competed in one race in the British Touring Car Championship at Donington Park, driving a Ford Sierra RS500.[24] Midway through the season, an opportunity arose at the uncompetitive Mooncraft F3000 team. The team tested Hill and Perry McCarthy. Their performances were comparable but according to the team manager, John Wickham, the team sponsors preferred the Hill name.[25] Although his best result was a 15th place, Hill's race performances for Mooncraft led to an offer to drive a Lola chassis for Middlebridge Racing in 1990. He took three pole positions and led five races in 1990, but did not win a race during his Formula 3000 career.[22]
Formula One
Brabham (1992)
Hill started his Grand Prix career during the 1991 season as a test driver with the championship-winning Williams team while still competing in the F3000 series.[26] However, midway through 1992 Hill broke into Grand Prix racing as a driver with the dying Brabham team. The formerly competitive team was in serious financial difficulties. Hill started the season only after three races, replacing Giovanna Amati after her sponsorship had failed to materialise.[27] Amati had been unable to get the car through qualifying but Hill matched his teammate, Eric van de Poele, by qualifying for two races, the mid-season British and Hungarian Grands Prix. Hill continued to test for the Williams team that year and the British Grand Prix saw Nigel Mansell win the race for Williams, while he finished last in the Brabham.[28] The Brabham team collapsed after the Hungarian Grand Prix and did not complete the season.[29]
Williams (1993–96)
When Mansell's teammate Riccardo Patrese left Williams to drive for Benetton in 1993, Hill was unexpectedly promoted to the race team alongside triple World Champion Alain Prost ahead of more experienced candidates such as Martin Brundle and Mika Häkkinen.[30] Traditionally, the reigning driver's World Champion carried the number "1" on his car and his teammate took the number "2". Because Mansell, the 1992 champion, was not racing in Formula One in 1993, Williams as Constructors' Champion were given numbers "0" and "2". As the junior partner to Prost, Hill took "0", the second man in Formula One history to do so, after Jody Scheckter in 1973.[31]
- 1993
The season did not start well when Hill spun out of second place shortly after the start of the South African Grand Prix and failed to finish the race after colliding with Alessandro Zanardi on lap 17.[32] At the Brazilian Grand Prix, Hill qualified and spent the early stages of the race running second behind Prost, and then took the lead when Prost crashed, but was relegated back to second by another three-time World Champion, Ayrton Senna. Nevertheless, the race still gave Hill his first podium finish.[33]
In the next round in Europe, Hill again finished second behind Senna and ahead of a lapped Prost. In his first full season, Hill benefited from the experience of his veteran French teammate.[34] He continued to impress as the season went on, and in San Marino Hill took the lead at the start, though he was passed by Prost and Senna and ultimately retired with a spin due to a brake failure.[35] Mechanical problems returned in Spain where he kept pace with Prost for most of the race only for his engine to fail.[36]
After strong podiums in Monaco and Canada, Hill took his first career pole in France, finishing second to Prost after team orders prevented him from seriously challenging for the win.[37] He looked set to win the British Grand Prix before another engine failure put him out and led the German Grand Prix comfortably only to suffer a puncture with two laps left, handing the win to Prost.[38]
At the Hungarian race, Hill did take his first career win after leading from start to finish. In doing so he became the first son of a Formula One Grand Prix winner to take victory himself,[15] and he followed it with two more wins, first at Spa where he took the lead following a pit stop problem for Prost,[39] and then at the Italian Grand Prix where Prost's engine failed towards the end. His third consecutive win clinched the Constructors' Championship for Williams and moved him temporarily to second in the Drivers' standings.[40] At the Portuguese Grand Prix Hill came from the back of the grid to third, having stalled on the warm up lap from pole.[41] He finished the season by finishing fourth in Japan and third in Australia, though he lost second in the Drivers' Championship to Ayrton Senna, who passed Hill by winning the last two races.[42]