How Damon Hill fulfilled his ‘destiny’ to win the British GP

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to cry.” Bette Hill wiped away the tears as she embraced her son amid the throng outside the Williams motorhome last Sunday evening.

“It doesn’t matter,” Damon comforted her. “I get emotional too.”

Bette composed herself. “That was brilliant,” she told him. “It was really brilliant. I’m so excited, really exalted.”

“I know, I know,” he said. “I can understand what it must be like. You’ve only been coming here since 1958, haven’t you?”

“Yes, and my old man never won it. Never did it in all that time.”

“I know,” Damon said. “It doesn’t make any sense at all, does it?”

It was one of those supreme moments. Forget the mechanics of it all, or any politics, this was the human element. One of those stories that would mock any scriptwriter.

For Damon personally, it was also a vindication – a word he used himself in the immediate aftermath. Last weekend had not been all plain sailing.

On arrival at Silverstone last Thursday, there was something else that hadn’t made any sense to Hill. He’d seen off Nigel Mansell in Magny-Cours and yet the daily papers were full of speculation that his position in the team was under threat from Nigel and David Coulthard.

Facing the British media before the on-track action began, Damon’s mood was black. “What do you have to bloody do,” he stormed, “for people to believe that you are any good?

“Last weekend I beat Nigel Mansell for pole position in Magny-Cours. A year ago I beat Alain Prost to pole at his home race and I led it. I come closer to beating Michael Schumacher than anyone all year other than Ayrton Senna, and all I’m reading in the papers is that my job is in jeopardy.

“It is not! I’m second in the world championship. I’ve come here to beat Michael Schumacher, to win this race and try to turn this championship around. I’ve never heard such a lot of bollocks in all my life as I have this past week. I’m very… very pissed off.”

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Bernie Ecclestone could not have been more right when he said recently that we would see a different Damon at Silverstone. A more confident Damon. But this wasn’t exactly confidence, more unbridled anger. It was a man, always resilient and determined in a quiet way, now baring his teeth.

“Basically, I don’t get any credit for being polite and diplomatic,” he said, “so I’m going to ditch that tack as it’s not getting me anywhere.

“It’s taken me 10 years to get to this position in Formula 1 and I’m not going to give it up to anyone without a serious fight” Damon Hill

“I’m fighting a battle here with a car that is clearly not as good as the Schumacher/Benetton pairing. I need 100% backing from Williams to do the job, which I’ve asked for. And after last weekend, I’ve proven that I am getting the best out of my equipment.

“It’s taken me 10 years to get to this position in Formula 1 and I’m not going to give it up to anyone without a serious fight. I promise you that I am here to stay. I have proven myself as a top F1 driver. And this weekend I will once again prove that point.”

But Friday could not have started worse. Damon did not so much as finish a lap before, incredibly, the rear fixings to both suspension wishbones pulled out and the car bounced to a stop. That was it for the first 45-minute session.

“It was so bizarre that I couldn’t be angry – I was in a state of disbelief,” he said. “I went out of the pitlane and was just building up speed. I hit the brakes to go into Becketts and it pulled the suspension out. The upper wishbones just went twang and the whole upright tried to rotate and break the suspension off from underneath. It just bounced along. I looked down and thought: ‘What the hell is going on here? What have I done?’

Hill’s rear fixings to both suspension wishbones snapped off on his very first lap on Friday – but it wasn’t going to be a sign of how his weekend would unfold

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“I got on the radio and it was like… well, let’s just say I couldn’t really articulate it! I parked up, climbed out and got a lift from someone. As we were coming back to the pits I saw Patrick Head coming out of the car park. I shouted to stop the car, leapt out and went up to Patrick – who looked like he’d just got off the No29 bus from Clapham, with all his cases and everything, and was just going off to work.

“He was suddenly confronted with his driver saying: ‘You won’t believe what’s just happened’ – or words to that effect. It was a really bad start to his day…”

The British Grand Prix meeting was just moments old and, in the press room, journalists were still unpacking briefcases. Many had to have their attention drawn to the monitors. The cameras were following Damon as he arrived back at a nervous-looking Williams pit. “Christ,” someone said, “if that had been Mansell…”

There had obviously been some finger trouble, but Hill was calm and there was no hint of any remonstration.

“I must say it was the most bizarre thing,” he added later, “and very untypical of Williams. I’ve done thousands and thousands of miles with them, and it’s one of those freak things. I’ve had loose wheels, that’s quite common – though not with Williams, I have to say. But certainly every driver experiences something like that from time to time.

“It doesn’t do your confidence any good, but I think I’ve shown I’ve got every confidence in the team. I immediately went out and was quick.

“I don’t think you should underestimate the amount of work required to keep these cars in top condition and the stress the mechanics are under. We ask an awful lot of them and perhaps sometimes it’s unreasonable. They work all hours non-stop, and it’s been a particularly hard year in any case. They are stressed-out to the maximum, and we even had one guy go down with heat exhaustion in Magny-Cours.

“He was just completely whacked; couldn’t take the heat and spent the whole race in the truck trying to cool down. It really is a tough job, and I don’t think enough credit is given to the guys. You can’t just talk about this morning and say it was lack of thoughtfulness. It is important to bear in mind workload.”

For a man fired up with a burning ambition to win his home Grand Prix and silence his critics, it was a remarkable reaction. Hill is growing in stature with every race and, if he ever tires of the cockpit, Ann Bradshaw and Jane Gorard should look out at Williams – he obviously has a career in PR.

Hill put the trouble of Friday behind him to prove his doubters wrong

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On Saturday it all came right for him. In an epic pole battle full of drama, Damon was quickest on each of his runs and the last time, it stuck. Staring pensively at the monitors as Schumacher launched a last attack, Damon punched the air as the German missed by just three thousandths of a second.

“Believe me,” he said afterwards, “I was very emotional in the car when I did it. Then I was praying it would stick. I’m absolutely delighted. I made a promise I would get pole and that’s one thing out of the way. Now I just want to win.

“There’s no question that being on your home ground lifts you. Nigel claimed it is worth a second a lap and I don’t think he’s far wrong!”

Wife Georgie threw her arms around her husband when the pole was confirmed; now it was a question of Sunday. Could he do the second part of the job?

“After Imola, Damon was very much under pressure. There was certainly a stage where he was uncertain about what to do with the car. He was more inclined to say that we’ve got major problems rather than worry about how to sort them out” Patrick Head

Damon wanted it badly, and Head noticed a difference in him on Sunday. “Normally he’s pretty relaxed and you can share a joke with him,” Patrick said. “I wouldn’t say you couldn’t do that, but he was pretty focused and not really talking a lot.

“You could tell that 95% of his mind was concentrating on what he had to do, and the other 5% was on his sponsor work and so on.”

Hours later, Head was clearly delighted as he stood alongside Georgie, watching Damon on the rostrum. Only a couple of nights earlier, Renault Sport president Patrick Faure had said it would be very bad for Renault not to have Damon with them next year. Were there any moves from the team?

“It’s not anything we’ve thought about at this stage,” Patrick said, “nor would we say anything here, but I think we’d probably be unwise to ignore his abilities, and I’m sure it’s something Frank will be paying attention to over the next couple of weeks.

Damon and his wife Georgie celebrate pole position – but the main test was to come on Sunday

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“After Imola, Damon was very much under pressure. There was certainly a stage where he was uncertain about what to do with the car. He was more inclined to say that we’ve got major problems rather than worry about how to sort them out. But I think that’s behind us now.

“It was a very difficult time for everybody. Although he and Ayrton were very different characters, in a short time Damon had developed a very high regard for him.”

The Silverstone race was the first time this year that anything had looked remotely capable of running with Schumacher in race trim. Had Mansell had a strong engineering input?

“I think we were already at a transition stage of knowing what we had to do,” said Patrick, “but he has a lot of experience. Because he’s very confident in his ability, he could say very firmly if he thought changes were beneficial or not.

“Maybe he was more certain and I think in a way it assisted Damon, who was saying the same things as Nigel but maybe in a slightly less focused, slightly less precise and confident way. Nigel is certain, whether he’s right or wrong. But there’s no way, Nigel said: ‘Do this, do this, do that and you’ll win the British Grand Prix’.”

No, last Sunday it was down to one man: Damon Hill.

“I feel superb,” he said, still somewhat shellshocked in his moment of triumph. “It’s the best day of my life. Like a dream.

“For everyone at Williams it has been a tough year, and I want to thank them for getting behind me. I had a lot of motivation to win, not least because my father never did.

“It’s funny, but I almost feel it was my destiny to win this race. I feel everything in my life has come together at this point.”

Hill achieved a special feat at Silverstone 31 years ago

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