Damon Hill

Damon Hill is an automobile old driver English, born the September 17th 1960 with Hampstead, London. Wire of the double champion of the world of Formula 1 Graham Hill, it conquered itself the world title in 1996. Damon Hill currently chairs the BRDC (British Racing Drivers' Club).

Biography

Beginnings

During the first years of its life, Damon Hill carries out a luxurious existence. His/her father Graham Hill, world champion of Formula 1 in 1962 then in 1968, is indeed one of the most famous pilots of his time. But any rocker in 1975 when, whereas Damon is 15 years old, Graham is killed in an air crash with the members out of the team which it had just created, and leaves only debts in heritage with its wife and her children. In prey with great financial problems, the Hill family sees her way of life to change day at the following day. Damon then tests hardly the desire for going on the traces of his/her father and is impassioned especially for the music. With friends of college, and while the wave Punk breaks on England, it creates even a transitory group: Sex, Hitler and the Hormones .

To the beginning of the year 1980, Damon launches out in the competition, but on two wheels. It obtains excellent results at the national level (more than 40 victories of speed 500 cm ³), until his/her mother, considering reorientates the races of car less dangerous, it on four wheels by paying him a training course of pilot at the Winfield school of Magny-Course. In 1984, Hill begins her career in automobile sport, Formule Ford, then in Formule 3 until 1988. Damon Hill appears like a fast and steady pilot, but those which at the time cotoient it on the circuit do not feel in him the ardor and the determination of a young wolf. In 1989, it reaches the championship of Formule 3000, or as in F3 or Ford Formula, it manages to be involved regularly in the group of head, but without showing an amazing talent. In spite of several poles and some carried out races, it does not gain least success during its three seasons of Formula 3000.

First steps in F1

From 1991, parallel to her ultimate season of Formula 3000, Hill is chosen by the team Williams - Renault to become the pilot tester about it. Taking into account the mitigated impression left by Hill in the lower formulas, it is then difficult not to see in this promotion the influence of its famous patronym. However, the work of the shade realized by Hill at Williams attracts the compliments of the titular pilots quickly to him Nigel Mansell and Riccardo Patrese, like those of the demanding chief technical officer Patrick Head.

In 1992, while remaining pilot tester at Williams, there takes down a wheel of holder in the dying woman stable Brabham, to replace the pilot Italian Giovanna Amati. After five not-qualifications, he manages to hoist his Brabham BT60B on the starting grid of the GP of Great Britain, which he finishes 16th and good the last, with several turns of the winner Nigel Mansell, which file towards the world title at the wheel of the car that Hill contributes to develop the remainder of the week. At the conclusion of the GP of Hungary, marked by the second participation of Hill, the Brabham team definitively closes her doors, fault of money.

Team-member models at Williams

With the end of the year 1992, Mansell and Patrese leave Williams, and Damon Hill is selected to shoulder Alain Prost at the time of the season 1993. The decision to establish Hill (whereas others pilot with dimensions such as Martin Brundle or Mika Hakkinen were had a presentiment of) surprises with the first access, but is justified by the team by the need for ensuring a technical continuity, the engineers not liking to change all their pilots from one season to another.

After a first half of discrete season, during which it always does not make honor with the superiority of its machine, Hill raises her level of play during the year. After being last close to the victory in England and Germany, it takes down three consecutive successes (in Hungary, Belgium and Italy) which contribute to the new world title of the manufacturers gained by Williams.

Duels lost vis-a-vis Schumacher

In 1994, Hill starts the season as a lieutenant of Ayrton Senna, her new team-member at Williams. But the death of the Brazilian pilot at the time of the third GP of the season gives him new responsibilities. Helped well by the troubles of Michael Schumacher with the sporting capacity (two disqualifications and two races of suspension), Hill takes down several victories and carries out a spectacular return in the fight for the title. The Hill-Schumacher fight culminates at the time of GP of Japan, where the English, heroic, arrives on a track softened to resist the pressure of his German rival and to take down a victory which enables him to approach the ultimate handle of the championship in Australia with only one point of delay. But in the streets of Adelaide, the duel turns short, following a doubtful operation of Schumacher. In perdition after violent a touchette against the wall, this last is off-set brutally on Hill at the time when the British pilot undertakes to double it, which results in to break its suspension before-left and to force it with the abandonment. Hill thus loses the championship for only one point.

In 1995, Hill seems able to take her revenge and seizes the head of the championship of the world thanks to two victories at the beginning of season. But the continuation of the championship turns to the martyrdom for Hill, dominated by Schumacher, and which makes guilty several big mistakes. It again finishes vice-champion of the world, but far from Schumacher. At the conclusion of the season, criticisms do not save Hill, pinned for her lack of plume, its average speed like its psychological brittleness.

Dedication

It is into 1996 that Damon Hill reaches the top of her career. Announced like the logical favorite of the championship following the departure of its rival eternal Schumacher at Ferrari (then in full rebuilding), it takes down the world title, thus becoming at 36 years the first wire of world champion to join his father with the prize list. But the title of Hill is not enough to convince all its detractors, who point out that with the wire of the season, the English was abused more and more by his new team-member, the Québécois beginner Jacques Villeneuve, which manages to make last suspense until the ultimate race of the season in Japan. Symbol of the lack of confidence surrounding Hill, her employer during the year announces (before the exit of the championship is not known) that its contract will not be renewed for the following season.

End of a career

Logically very courted on the market of the transfers (in particular by McLaren, but also Jordan, Prost and Stewart), Damon Hill closes several doors while proving financially too greedy in its negotiations. With the general surprise, it signs finally for the modest stable Arrows, directed by the ambitious Tom Walkinshaw. After a very difficult beginning of the season, Arrows (which profits from a privileged partnership with Bridgestone, newcomer on the scene of the Grand Prix) progress slightly in the hierarchy. But slow progress of Arrows does not let of anything forecast memorable the Grand Prix of Hungary, during which Hill (author at the beginning of race of a going beyond full with authority on Schumacher) passes to a few hectometers of the victory while being made exceed in the last turn by Jacques Villeneuve continuation a hydraulic concern on her car. For much, this performance will give to Hill legitimacy that even its world title had not been able to confer to him.

In spite of this blow of glare, Hill, little convinced by the future prospects for Arrows, changes team again to join Jordan - Mugen Honda in 1998. After a disastrous beginning of the season, the Jordan team finds colors, that from which profits Hill to join again with the victory, at the time of a GP of Belgium disputed under dantesques conditions. Always at Jordan in 1999, Hill appears quickly as the shade of the pilot who it was. Very largely dominated by its fellow-member Heinz-Harald Frentzen, he announces his departure with the retirement at the end of some races. One will lend to Hill the intention to leave F1 as of the semi-season at the conclusion of the GP of Great Britain, but in reasons of commercial obligations, he finally agree to hold his place until the exit of the championship.

If he is not the most talented pilot that Formula 1 knew, there remains about it nevertheless an example of tenacity and courage. It leaves behind him a prize list that many pilots can envy since it gained 22 races, obtained 20 pole positions and carried out 19 times the best turn in race. On the whole, it will have piled up 360 points in 115 Grands Prix.

Victories in Championship of the world of Formula 1

See too

Graham Hill, her father
Pilot of Formula 1: classification per year
Pilot of Formula 1: classification by better Pilot turns
of Formula 1: classification by Pilot podiums
of Formula 1: classification by Pilot poles position
of Formula 1: classification by Pilot victories
of Formula 1: classification by hat tricks

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