World beater opens up to MN
ALAIN PROST, AYRTON SENNA, NIGEL MANSELL – I WANTED TO BE TESTED AGAINST THE VERY BEST
The 1996 world champion says he was never afraid of the ultimate challenge, as he told Matt James and the MN readers
Motorsport News found Damon Hill in a philosophical mood. The 1996 world beater and now Sky F1 pundit has had plenty of time to reflect during lockdown, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t chomping at the bit for the season to get going.
While we are all on hiatus, the former Brabham, Williams, Arrows and Jordan racer tackled a series of questions from Motorsport News readers and took his time to give the fullest answers he could, for which we are grateful.
Tackling tricky situations is something that he had become used to through his motorsport career. Nothing came easily for the son of two-time champion Graham. That was evident from his earliest days in motorsport and was crowned by his battle to overcome Michael Schumacher, which was one of the narratives of Formula 1 in the 1990s.
He did prevail, but then walked away from the cockpit for good in 1999. For Damon, there was no sojourn at Le Mans or in any other series, Once the famous London Rowing Club colours on his crash helmet had been hung up, that was it. That was a bold decision and one that hasn’t been possible for a lot of Hill’s contemporaries, but it goes to show the clear decisionmaking and bigger view of the world that the former British Racing Drivers’ Club president has made his hallmark.
Here, he gets to grips with his latest challenge: a grilling from MN readers.
Question: “Eric van der Poele, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, David Coulthard, Nigel Mansell, Jacques Villeneuve, Pedro Diniz, Ralf Schumacher, Heinzharald Frentzen. Who was the fastest team-mate? Who was the most underrated? Who was the most fun? Who would you choose as your team-mate if you raced again?
Richard Randle
Via Twitter
DH: “Fastest has to be Ayrton Senna. Every time he got in the car, he was terrifyingly quick and he simply didn’t know the meaning of ‘slightly slower’.” MN: When you heard Senna was coming to Williams did you roll your eyes?
You’d just got rid of Alain Prost, and then you had Senna coming in…
DH: “I took the view that I knew I was very lucky to get picked up in my 30s and drive for a top team in Formula 1, so I always thought that I was pretty lucky be there. So, I was like ‘bring it on’.
You might as well find out how you compare to the best. That’s all you want to know in racing, isn’t it? You want to know if there is anyone better than you: and they threw Ayrton Senna,
Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost at me… Try that for a starter…”
MN: So, Senna was the fastest. Who do you think was the most underrated?
DH: “The underrated question is a good one. I think probably…underrated?
You would have to say Heinz-harald Frentzen was very good. I think he had the potential, but he somehow blew hot and cold. That was the thing with him.” MN: Would it be unfair to say that he probably didn’t have the mental robustness to survive at Williams, with all of its brio?
DH: “I thought he was far too laid back for his own good. I didn’t see any hint of insane desire to win. Ralf Schumacher was quite an intense person but very quick actually, but as far as underrated, I think they were all properly assessed, those drivers. I always think Nigel Mansell was underrated a bit though. The personality obscured his brilliance.
It is more difficult if you come from these lands, the UK, and to have that mystique about you. That is no disrespect from people from Birmingham or from the Black Country but he didn’t have a ‘Carlos Fandango’name and I always think the fact he went to Ferrari, where he was christened ‘Il Leone’was the making of him. That was the true Mansell. The Italians would have seen Il Leone, and that was the Mansell I saw too.”
MN: And, the most fun? And who would you choose if you had to race again?
DH: “Heinz-harald Frentzen was the most fun. His was hysterical. He had an incredibly dry sense of humour and he had us in stitches. I would choose Jacques Villeneuve, because we respected each other. He was a bit cheeky, but never underhand. Not that the others were. You wouldn’t want to be a team-mate with Ayrton Senna, because he was just too brutally competitive. Alain Prost was charming, but he was at the end of his career, and Nigel Mansell I liked.
He was actually quite fun.”
MN: Were there any politics involved with Mansell, or was he OK?
DH: “He was fine. He was a little bit like Donald Trump, personality-wise: there is only room for one person in his professional demeanour and that’s probably the way it has got to be, but I don’t think he was ever negative about me. And he never gave me any reason to think he was trying to screw me: in fact, he was very supportive and he just enjoyed his racing, a lot.”
Question: “I believe you would have been a triple world champion if Michael Schumacher hadn’t taken you out in Adelaide in 1994. What are your thoughts on that situation now?”
Dan Johnson
Via Twitter
DH: “You can’t look at it like that, can
“Ayrton Senna simply didn’t know the meaning of going slowly” Damon Hill
you? Why was I there in the first place? Ayrton Senna had been killed and the whole season was topsy-turvy one way or another. I had fought with everything I had to win that championship but I was always playing catch up to Michael. I was always going to be vulnerable to [a move] like that. I can hold my head up looking back on it. I put up a valiant defence and attack and I just didn’t have the racing experience that he had from all of his years in karting. Looking back now, it was very naive of me to put myself there.” MN: So you wouldn’t have done it if you had been three or four years further on in your career?
DH: “I certainly wouldn’t have done it now, would I? I didn’t know, but do I think I should have been world champion? No, I don’t. In a way, I don’t think anyone should have been world champion because it was a bit of a torrid year. It is always slightly uncomfortable feeling winning because someone else couldn’t make it to the finish. It is not the way you want it to be.”
Question: “What was the 1992 Brabham BT60B-JUDD like to drive?” Huw Selby Via Twitter MN: Also, you would have been getting in that after having been the test driver in the Williams, which was the cream of the crop at that time. It must have been a culture shock…
DH: “It was, very much of a shock. I hardly fitted in the car at all, because it was pencil slim. I was sitting bolt upright and I didn’t really have the room to use all the gears. There were six, but I think I could only use two gates because I couldn’t get the lever across as my legs were in the way. The power characteristics of the engine were slightly agricultural. It wasn’t refined. They were very short of money and when a team is short of money, no disrespect to the mechanics and the people who put it together, there are going to be parts there that are longer in the tooth than they should have been. It was a bit risky.” MN: But lining up for that first grand prix, on home soil at Silverstone, must have been such an amazing feeling?
DH: “I think one of the bravest laps of my entire career was to get that Brabham into the British Grand Prix in 1992! It was pretty good to qualify. I seemed to be making a speciality of qualifying cars that weren’t particularly good, I had done that in Formula 3000 too. If I could do what nobody thought was possible with a piece of equipment, then that reflected well on me. It was a step forward in my view.”
Question: “It would be interesting to hear Damon’s take on joining Arrows for 1997.”
TFZ Cammie Racing
Via Twitter
Question: “Describe your feelings after passing Michael Schumacher for the lead at the Hungarian Grand Prix in 1997.”
Warren Pit Crew
Via Twitter
MN: That was a left-field move and Tom Walkinshaw, who was running the team then, must have offered you the world to go there with a Yamaha engine… did you see it as a risk at the time?
DH: “It was a strategic move really. Everyone else wanted to sign me for two years. And I just needed to get the Mclaren drive in 1998 because I wanted to be where Adrian Newey was [after working with him at Williams]. I wanted a one-year deal and Tom Walkinshaw offered me the known world to join.
It was a pretty decent wage packet and lots of possibilities. The other thing about that deal was the Bridgestone tyres.
That’s what made it interesting. There was always going to be a chance – and that is what happened in Hungary – that Bridgestone was going to turn up with all the right ingredients. I knew I would get a shot. When I tested, the Bridgestones were fantastic and Michael Schumacher won most of his races on Bridgestones. They got it right in a few places where Goodyear got it wrong, and another appeal of that whole deal was that I got to work with [designer] John Barnard too. In Hungary, taking the lead, it was pretty special. Brilliant in fact. I could see it coming. I could see Michael Schumacher’s tyres were going to pot. He had no traction, and I just thought ‘I’ve got him’. There was nothing he could do: he tried though. He had a points lead to protect and I didn’t, so in that situation as opposed to Adelaide in 1994, the boot was on the other foot that time. He had to stay well clear and he didn’t want to collide with me. He is not that stupid.”
Question: “In dealing with the aftermath of Ayrton Senna’s death, were you able to draw any inspiration from your father Graham’s own experience of lifting the Lotus team after the death of Jim Clark?”
Greg Tomkins
Via Twitter
DH: “We all take so much from our parents’example, don’t we? That is in every way. I was lucky in a way that my dad had had this terrific career in motorsport and he had faced a lot of challenges that I have read and learned a lot about how he dealt with those things. And his approach to life definitely armed me well for the challenge we had after losing Ayrton Senna. But it is slightly odd comparing the two situations, even though there are some curious parallels.”
MN: You were tested as much off track as you were on it, and you were still in the early stages of your Formula 1 career. That was a lot to cope with at that time, wasn’t it?
DH: “In motorsport, when things happen like what happened to Jules Bianchi [who was killed after the Japanese Grand Prix in 2014]: all those guys who were around then, they had to come to terms with some pretty heavy questions and that is what makes motor racing a little bit more challenging than other sports like football for example. There are issues you have to deal with as a racing driver that you don’t have to in other sports. That is not to say that it is unique. I wouldn’t want to be a gymnast and land on my neck. There are dangers involved in a lot of sports. But to get back into a racing car after a team-mate has been killed is not something you want to have to do every day at all. Life is, as we are discovering right now, not what we want it to be. You are put in awful situations: think about the guys who went off to fight in the First World War. They didn’t have any choice. You got a letter which told you you were off to the front and that was that. You either went over the top or they shot you while you were in the trench. That is challenging. Being a Formula 1 driver is easy by comparison.”
Question: Did you ever consider making a grand prix comeback like Niki Lauda or Michael Schumacher, or were you in no doubt that the Japanese Grand Prix in 1999 was your final race in Formula 1?
Sam Dyson
Via Twitter
DH: “I definitely knew that it would be my last race in Japan. I had enough. My mind was made up and I was closed to the idea after that.”
MN: So what prompted it then?
DH: “I was 39 years old! And you don’t get better. You know yourself where you compare to your best, and I peaked in the Japanese Grand Prix in 1994. I had a few more occasions where I knew I was on it. At Spa in 1998 [where Hill won in a Jordan-mugen Honda], to win that race took quite a lot out of me. I remember thinking after that that maybe I didn’t have the stamina for the role anymore. Given a good car and a little less opposition, it was still possible to win, but tough races take a lot out of you.”
MN: But you decided to walk away completely. Many of your contemporaries did things like Le Mans or the DTM.
Why not you?
DH: “Jackie Stewart did it. He walked away: he hardly ever drove a car after that, he just had a chauffeur! I knew that for me, it seemed like a trap. There are two things that are going to happen: you are going to go slower, or you are going to get hurt. I didn’t fancy either of those. One of those two things are inevitable. Maybe that is too negative actually. Maybe you could win a couple of DTM races. David Coulthard did it, and I know Rubens Barrichello races quite energetically and you could have done Le Mans. But it is clear to me that there is nothing out there that is as good as Formula 1. Formula 1 is the top. Everything else is going to be slightly less, in all areas: it will be slower, slightly less well prepared and, as a result of that, it will be less enjoyable.”
Question: “Both Martin Brundle and Karun Chandhok have driven some Formula 1 cars while working on Sky
F1. Is there any chance of seeing you drive one of the modern F1 cars? I, for one, would love to see you drive the Williams and hear your feedback on it.” Tufael Ahad
Via Twitter
DH: “The last modern Formula 1 car I drove was one of Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bulls – I can’t even remember what year – but since then no-one has asked me! I don’t know what I did wrong back then. It was a demonstration run at a Renault World Series round at Barcelona. I was given a couple of laps, it was bloody amazing: it was absolutely painted to the road, and I was only on wet tyres too. I don’t think the average fan or even the top fans realise just how difficult it is to drive and get the maximum out of an F1 car. Physically, the forces are ridiculous. It is insane. I just haven’t got the muscles to do that anymore and my heart rate would go through the roof and I would probably have a heart attack. I could do a couple of laps, maybe but I just couldn’t keep it up. It is too hard. It looks easy, and everyone can play computer games and they think they can do it but I am telling you, if you are not experiencing the g-forces, and the wind, and the bumps and the noise and it is all that stuff, plus the fear, then you are not really driving the car.”
MN: And, of course, the drivers have to do so much more now…
DH: “I am staggered what the drivers do today. I would find that so distracting. I would probably get to cope with it, but it is certainly not something I would have wanted to do. I enjoyed manhandling the cars with the gears and the clutch. I liked that: I appreciated the manual side of things, even though I drove the active car which was a lot of fun. It is like trying to spin plates now: patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time.”
Question: “Which part of your career so far, either racing or not, has given you the most personal satisfaction?”
Kevin Meeks
Via Twitter
DH: “When I get asked by journalists to talk about things that I have done, I am taken on a journey back to the experiences I had in Formula 1 and I would say they were the best times of my life, certainly my professional life. That is because you are so wholly invested in it. There is something very enhancing about that and fulfilling. It is very difficult to get that when you stop racing. I am very lucky I can look back and appreciate my career and some great results. Some people haven’t got that, and so I do thank my lucky stars.”
Question: “Which out of your two wins in the Japanese Grand Prix would you consider to be your best?”
Chris Miles
Via Twitter
DH: “It is 1994. The degree of difficulty and the pressure was totally off the scale. Although, I have to say, 1996 had its own unique challenges. Once Jacques Villeneuve fell off the road when his wheel came off it was OK, but up to that point there was a lot going on and there was a lot of anxiety about how things were going to pan out, because it was three weeks between the penultimate race in Portugal and Japan. It was a big gap, and I got the sack in between when Williams said it wouldn’t be re-employing me, so I was looking for a drive too. Three weeks is a long time to wait to find out if you were going to be a world champion.” MN: But the win in 1994 seemed like a typical Damon Hill win: there was everything thrown at you in that race and you have to overcome it all. Nothing seemed to ever come easy to you.
DH: “If you ever wanted some sort of proof that you really did beat Michael Schumacher and it wasn’t because you had a better car or something, that was it there. Suzuka does it for me, because I didn’t even have four new tyres on the car. When they came into the pits, they couldn’t get the left rear off and it was bald as a coot by the end of the race. I am impressed with myself for that, and also indebted to Carl Gaden, who was my mechanic, who took the decision to leave the damn thing on. If it wasn’t for that, I would have lost the race. That was brilliant thinking on his feet.”
Question: “What is your favourite ‘cheat day’ meal?”
Sir Meerkat
Via Twitter
DH: “I am vegetarian, and I have been for about 18 years – only because I would rather not kill little creatures to eat them. That kind of drives you towards pulses, soups, lentils, chickpeas and Indian food. Indian is a treat. There is a particularly good one near here. I like a Chaat Masala.”
Question: “What is your favourite racing car and favourite motorbike?” The Hunt Brothers
Via email
DH: “I think it would be the Lotus 49.
It is a pretty looking car. It would have to be the 1967 car because they didn’t have wings on and they didn’t have anything. They were just raw and I have driven one. Anyone who has driven a modern car knows that these older ones do have their limitations. They look beautiful and you can slide them around and use the power, so that is fun. But my Williams FW18 would be the best Formula 1 car I drove and, as far as bikes go, I have always loved lots of them. If I look at a motorbike, I love it. I normally am interested and they bring up all sorts of memories, but a [1970s] Yamaha TZ750 is special. It was a beast. I think Sebastian Vettel has one, but I am not sure. He has a Kawasaki too. He has lots of things that he keeps quiet.”
“That period of my life gave me the ultimate professional satisfaction” Damon Hill