Still revved up
DRIVING LEGEND HAS GOOD AND BAD MEMORIES OF OZ
Damon Hill says there is no denying the Netflix effect on modern Formula 1 racing. The British driving champ, who was the 1996 F1 World Champion and won 22 races in a seven-year stretch during the 1990s, says the streaming giant’s hugely popular Drive to Survive has revitalised the sport with younger viewers.
“It’s huge,” he says of the hit documentary series, now in its fifth season. “I was recently sitting down at dinner with a friend of mine’s family and the kids, who are in their 20s, were saying ‘oh, have you seen Netflix? Didn’t you used to race cars in Formula 1?’. They had only just realised and now it’s just captured their imagination and it’s just brought a new generation into Formula 1.”
Hill, who will be commentating on this year’s Australian Grand Prix for Channel 10 is hoping his visit this week will be more successful than his last trip, when the race became one of the first major events cancelled when the Covid pandemic hit in 2020.
It’s fair to say that his memories of racing Down Under are mixed. He has the unique distinction of being the only driver to win backto-back races in Adelaide and Melbourne, but it’s the 1994 race on the old South Australian track that sticks in the memory.
It was the last race of the season and Hill was trailing his rival Michael Schumacher by just a point in the Drivers’ Championship before a controversial collision forced both drivers to retire. It ensured the German great won the season for the first time, even if some, including Hill’s Williams team, suspected foul play.
“That’s the one that people still mention and one of those sporting moments like the ‘Hand of God’, only it wasn’t God,” reflects Hill, drawing comparisons with Maradonna’s famous 1986 World Cup soccer goal that wasn’t.
“I was in the heat of that extraordinary title fight for the ’94 championship, but when Michael won it of course, he had never won one before. So I felt pretty bad about losing the championship but when he went on to win seven, I felt maybe I didn’t do too badly.”
Nevertheless, he’s keen to come back this year, saying that the Australian GP fans are among the most passionate and knowledgeable in the world and the fact that rather than kicking the season off, this year’s race is the third in the season is a bonus.
He believes Red Bull – which has gone one-two in the races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia so far – is very much the team to beat and while he thinks established driver Max Verstappen is odds-on favourite for a three-peat in the drivers’ title, his Mexican teammate Sergio Perez will push him all the way. “I think the championship gets better as the story unfolds,” he says.
“Everyone is excited to see the first race but it’s not going to be a title decider and it’s not going to show a pattern just yet. We are still in that phase of determining how the season is going to pan out.
“There were some slightly worried looks after the dominance of the Red Bull duo but then after Saudi Arabia of course, Sergio has lifted his game and shown he is not going to go down without a fight, which is good news.”
While Australia has had had skin in the modern F1 game for more than 20 years thanks to NSW’s Mark Webber and
West Australian Daniel Ricciardo, fans this year have a hometown hero to cheer for in Oscar Piastri. The rookie driver’s spin around the Albert Park track will be just his third at the top level, and Hill says he’s living up to the hype so far.
“He has acquitted himself very well,” he says. “He didn’t get much of a chance in Bahrain but in Saudi he did a good job of showing what he can do. I definitely think he has got a little bit of star quality there.”
From this own experiences at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, Hill says racing at home can be a blessing and curse. The sheer goodwill and positivity can be tempered by the weight of expectation and the extra demands on a driver’s time.
“My advice to Oscar is to lap it up and enjoy every minute of it,” he says. “It’s great to be received in your home country and see everyone come out to support you. But you just have to save a bit of energy for the race.”
Hill’s memories of racing in Australia are still inextricably linked to those of his dear friend, the late former Beatle George Harrison, who was also an F1 fanatic. Hill himself is a pretty handy guitarist who played in a punk band while still at school, played on a Def Leppard album and formed a cover band once he’d finished racing.
“George said that I play guitar about as well as he drives,” Hill says with a laugh of jamming with the guitar guru. “That should give you some idea. He did teach me a few Scotty Moore riffs and I am still learning them – that was about 30 years ago.
“George was such a lovely guy … He was just a very warm person and cut through all the rubbish.”
Having survived the hysteria of Beatlemania, Harrison also had a few handy tricks for dealing with fans. Hill recalls an occasion in Melbourne when he was being mobbed for autographs and was struggling to leave the track until Harrison stepped in.
“These people wouldn’t leave me alone and he was waiting in the van and he said to them: ‘No autographs after 5 o’clock’,” Hill says. “They literally looked at their watches and went ‘awww, shit’ because it was 10 past five – and they stopped asking.”
Australian Grand Prix, Friday to Sunday, Channel 10