LEGENDS: Damon Hill – from ‘humiliation’ to World Champion

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1:00Michael was very good at rubbing my nose in it, and it was damaging to me in the way that my team thought of me. Nobody wants to think that their guy's a loser. Going into 96, the mission was clear, and I had the tools to rectify the catastrophe of 95. And Damon Hill wins the Japanese Grand Prix, And I've got to stop because I've got a lump in my throat. I had a lump in my throat as well. Welcome everyone to this week's F1 Beyond the Grid. I am delighted to say we're joined by the 1996 world champion Damon Hill. Damon, how are you? I'm very well. It's lovely to be here, Tom. Thank you for having me.

1:46Again, this is my second. Yeah. And do you need to wait 30 years before you get arse back again? Or it actually wasn't 30 years ago, was it? It was nine years ago? I think you look about seven years older than when we lasted this. Yeah. That's good, I think. Yeah. Look, we're speaking at the Hungara ring. I want to talk to you about the world title, obviously, 30 years ago. But we're in Hungary, and I feel it's a very special racetrack for you. You won your first Grand Prix here. You nearly won in the Arrows in 97. Yeah. Love this place. I did win 95 as well. I think I've won two. You have? Yeah.

2:19I was trying to work out why I didn't win when I won the championship that year, but I was on the right-hand side of the grid. I qualified second, I think. Dirty. Dirty side of the grid. So the famous right-hand side of the grid did for me on 96. Yeah. But I should have been on pole. What can I say? But my question to you is one that I know Juan Pablo Montoya put to you a few years back as well, which is you never karted. No. This is a grown-up kart track. why were you always so good at the hungara ring i think first of all i had quite a good car advantage but actually when i you know i'm not i shouldn't really detract from my own performances but alan pross was on the front row and out qualified me but then stalled on the warm-up lap so he was out so in 93 uh i didn't really have any competition in actual fact i can remember the guy who was in second place it might have been patrese was ahead of me i could see him and he was second so i'd lapped everyone up to almost second place i don't know if that's a record as anyone must have lapped everyone in the field um if i'd got him i would have lapped everyone and then i'd have to lap myself to to improve but listen why so quick okay you had the car advantage in in 93 fair yeah but why so quick here so there's two types of corners it's very simple this is all right so everyone listen right this is this is the fundamentals of racetracks there's two types of corners there's 90 degree corners and there's 180 degree corners give or take yeah there's fast corners and slow corners so this has got lots of 180 degree corners in fact one two three i'm counting in my head um four five five substantial corners and you're in those corners a long time so if a car doesn't go round 180 degree corner well then it's going to be difficult to drive it so you have to you have to prescribe the curve you have to try to make the the car use all the track it can and i think maybe motorcycling helped me there a little bit because on a motorbike you you have to shallow out the curve you can't really adjust much once you're in the corner you you kind of yeah you draw a line in your mind around the corner look how fascinating to hear you mention motorbikes because you've won two titles in your life the 1984 champion of brands motorcycle the one they all want to win yeah exactly that one and of course the 1996 formula one world championship what did you learn on bikes i think you've just touched on But what did you learn on bikes that helped you in Formula One?

5:02Honestly, I think the only thing you can say is that you're on the same racetracks as cars use. So the idea of coming into a corner and having to reduce speed in order to get around the corner without reducing the speed too much is the same skill in a car or in a bike. The only thing in a bike is you can fall off. You know, you don't get much of a chance. If you get it wrong on a bike going into the apex, you're usually in big trouble. So in a car, you can afford to slide a bit here and there, but we know that sliding costs you time. So the goal is to get the car to take lateral load in a balanced way, which I think racing bikes, if you race a bike in the wet, you're very conscious of application of brakes coming off the brakes, that transition bit, and also coming onto the throttle on the way out of a corner.

5:54You want to put in as much throttle as you can, torque as you can on the rear wheel. But of course, too much in you, it's very quickly snaps off. So is it a coincidence that some of your best races in Formula One were in the wet? I'm thinking Suzuka 94. And of course, you know, that great win for Eddie Jordan at Spa in 98. Yeah, I think quite a lot of my races were good in the wet. I mean, I remember winning a race in Thruxton. It was absolutely, it had tipped down completely and in Formula Three. And I just got out in front and I was able to, it was like riding a bike in the wet, you know, where you have to, the hairs on the back of your hands stand up, you know, you have to be ready to catch it at any given moment.

6:35So I did do well in a lot of the races in Sao Paulo in 96. It absolutely tipped down. I was on the front row, which helps. You could see where you're going, but you're the first person to arrive when there's a puddle or a river. Well, let's talk about your year of years now. 30 years ago, 1996. Can you put us into your head what you're thinking, winter 95, 96? Because it had been a tough one in 95, hadn't it? Schumacher had won in the Benetton. How did you turn things around in the space of one winter? So if I can ask younger fans to think about how Lewis was last year, it's very depressing when you've been beaten and you're not getting the results you want.

7:18It can be quite a downer. so i was pretty down after 95 because i basically had my backside whipped by michael schumacher and my nose rubbed in it and all the rest of it and i didn't like it you know it was it was humiliating i really thought 95 i from 94 having coming come close to winning the title i thought 95 this is it i'm gonna come a close second but unfortunately he he he did for me in 95 and i i I emotionally, psychologically had a big dent. So over the winter, I knew that I had 96 as a great opportunity to maybe win a title. So I had to get myself together. And one of the ways you do that is you have to let go of whatever has passed.

8:04And of course, hope springs eternal. And if you've got a car that is going to be good and got a chance of winning, then that's all you think about. You start to think about the future. you start thinking about what's to come but if you've got a weakness if you've got a a flaw you need to address that and so i had to get my head around why i wasn't i didn't have the right stuff that everyone was talking about michael schumacher was having he just won his second title and clearly he was something special and i just thought i don't like that i don't like the fact that i don't have that special thing what is that special thing how do you get it and can someone like me also have that special thing what did you conclude what was his special thing that you want i don't think well i think in truth you know he was 10 years younger than me for one thing and he started his life in a go-kart track so i think that that helped a lot you were talking to me about not having done karting that was a weakness for me i i hadn't grown up in the same environment and also in the racing world the car racing four-wheel racing world and i think that my combative skills in in cars were not as uh full and as as complete as as michael's was so i had a little bit of a hole there in my my cv but one of the things the mental thing was to understand that when you're fighting for world championship you are also involved in a political and psychological battle and I had allowed the psychological political battle to I'd made mistakes in 95 by getting embroiled in in the game of talking about you know the competition and and the battle between me and Michael and the press had made great capital out of all of this rivalry and I'd fallen prey to it I hadn't I hadn't got the skills Michael was very good at rubbing my nose in it and it was damaging to me and also to the way that my team thought of me nobody wants to think that their guy's a loser and so I had to address that and I had to come back into 96 with the right attitude and understand that the way I behaved affected the team and I hadn't really properly appreciated it and the great drivers understand how to get the team behind you and around them um to help them succeed and one of those skills i think it was because i i'd spent so long on my own battling my own career to get to formula one i i didn't have a team to speak of um and williams actually were the first real team i had spent any amount of time with and been through all the battles with.

10:51You know, you think about Imola and so forth. And I hadn't prepared myself for that responsibility. And so I think I was just learning those skills. But then I was late in the day. I was 35 years old. And, you know, I didn't have many years ahead of me, not like Michael, who was only 25. Do you think it felt like you were making these mistakes in a very public environment, weren't you? Yeah, yeah. It is public. I mean, that is the nature of this sport. It's more public now than ever before. Just everything you do and say is broadcast. Your private, what we would regard as private conversations between yourself and your engineer are broadcast to everyone.

11:33Damon, it's an interesting point. If social media had been around in your day, do you think you would have used that to your advantage or do you think it would have made the situation even worse in 1995? I think if you look at what the contemporary drivers are doing now, they do not get involved in social media for their own advantage. They use it to show pictures of themselves doing R &R, you know, here's me on a boat skiing or, you know, enjoying myself. All positive stuff, but they don't use it to get at their rivals. Because they know that it backfires. And I think that's a very good example because that's sort of what I did in 95 with Michael.

12:15I played to the press thinking it was a good, fun game and actually it bit me on the backside. Well, there's that great photograph, isn't there, of you flicking a V at Michael, I think, from the pit wall at Silverstone. Yeah, which was all done in good humour. But of course, if you don't understand humour, then it's not funny. The British humour. No, but it was just, that's the way I saw it. is this is you know motor racing was fun but it's not fun when you're when you're losing and also you've got legions of fans who want you to win and you're disappointing them and stuff it can be can be really hard so you were aware of the flaws in 95 right how do you turn that around ahead of 96 was it just did someone point it out to you or were you i know what you're doing you're fishing for the answer i'm going to give you the answer don't worry tom which is a there was a woman that i got on board and she'd she'd been used in an interview or a piece that the bbc did about michael schumacher and why was he so good and and they did a piece on body language and i remember it distinctly there was this woman they got involved who was a advisor to politicians and an image consultant and her name was mary spillane and she'd been in this piece that murray walker says what is it about michael i mean she says well look at the way he walks for instance you know he's got his chin up and his head up and he's striding through.

13:34He's very confident. You look at Damon and he's looking at his shoelaces and shuffling around the paddock looking like he's beaten already. And I just thought, what? You mean it's as simple as that, you know? You're judging me on the way I'm walking in the paddock. That was an insight that I hadn't really considered. I never really thought that this is going to have a part to play, but of course it does. it does body language is very interesting because actually you can improve your confidence by adopting the posture it's not the chicken or the egg you know it's you you might say okay well this person is um he's not confident because he's looking down at his shoes and stuff that tells us he's not confident whereas you can actually go okay now do what michael does walk in with your chest out and your chin up and and look confident and actually the confidence builds in you so the psychology yeah you can you can there's a thing called the inner smile in buddhism where you meditate and you think of things that make you smile and it increases and so they can show this now medically they can show it scientifically that your uh the endorphins and all the things that make you feel good start to come into play, even if you fake a smile.

14:49So did you start meditating? No, I tried. I tried meditating, mate, honestly. It's not easy. Sitting down for lengthy periods of time not thinking about anything is quite hard. On that subject, there's two ways to meditate. There's open attention and close attention. And so you can actually be meditating when you're driving a racing car. There's a great quote from Sterling Moss, which is speed is tranquility. Is this the flow state? Oh, yeah. That's sort of what it is. So you get to the point where you're not conscious. You're not consciously doing something. You are aware of yourself doing something, which is your consciousness, but you're not actually engaging.

15:32So these things are states of mind where, so getting back to your point, I had to learn certain skills in order to go into a championship year that would army it would provide me with an armor and it would also help me concentrate on what it was i was there to do in other words don't get involved in stuff that you have no control over there's going to be stuff in your in your life all of our lives that we have no control over for very little control you know i mean if a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon can cause a tornado in Tokyo, then, you know, everything has an effect, but it's minimal.

16:12And the point is only focus on what you can have a definite impact on and stuff like that. So going into 96, the mission was clear and I had the tools that I needed in order to rectify the catastrophe of 95. That's a strong word. Catastrophe, is that? Yeah, I think it was close to catastrophe. And I think I was not retained by Williams at the end of my 1996 season. And I think the damage was done in 1995. So I think that probably was when a deal was done to not extend my contract. They knew that I was going to be there for 1996, but I'm not sure that they thought that they were completely convinced that I was going to do the job and maybe Jack would win the championship, which he put up a good fight and he could have done.

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20:04Can we talk about the car now, the FW18? From the first moment you turned a wheel in it, did you know you had the car underneath you as well? It's amazing, isn't it? Out of the box, that's what they say. You know, if it feels good. Within five laps. Yeah, it's amazing. It just did everything you wanted it to do. The 95 car was good, but this one was just sufficiently incrementally better so that it was in response. Yeah, you felt completely confident in it. If you made a little mistake, you could correct it and get away with it. So you're able to relax a bit in your driving and explore the limits of the car.

20:40And how closely had you worked with Adrian Newey, the car's designer, during its sort of gestation? Well, listen, I didn't go into the winter. I didn't go up to his drawing office and go, ah, I see you've got the front wings on the front of the car. Have you tried putting them somewhere else? No, I mean, you know, what use am I to Adrian Newey? Except did you ask him to make it big enough for your size 11s? I did. The only thing, this is the thing about the car is, and I got in at Goodwood recently, and I must have changed shape a little bit. I think my hips were crushed from years of being in a cockpit.

21:19So my hips are slightly wider, but it's up against the bone, so it can't be, it's not podge. But it was a bit snug, but principally the car fitted me, but it was slightly snugger than I remember. But my feet were able to operate the pedals. and there were cars i drove because i got size i got wide feet so i've got their size 11 which for a racing driver is big and but they're wide so the problem is the the narrowness of the cockpit they don't leave much room for you to get your foot in those days we used foot clutch as well so there there wasn't the the two pedal thing that would have been a solution for me but um so getting your feet between the bloody pedals and you know not hitting the brake with the accelerator when you're braking and stuff was always very difficult.

22:08So Adrian said, we've got to make you fit. And I remember Patrick and Adrian coming down and saying, Patrick, right, we've got to get him to fit into the car. It's like, that's a good thing to think about, isn't it? Because you have to have a driver in it. Have you ever thought of that? But again, back to the confidence thing, just having, you know, a footwell that fits, that all builds confidence, right? Yeah. So it was a bespoke car. that's the way I would describe it. It was a Damon Hill bespoke car. Jacques didn't have the same height and size of feet problems as I had, so he had plenty of room to play with.

22:44But it was important to get me fit. And also the other thing was the height of your head was really critical because I don't know if you look at that car, the helmet and the headrest are designed almost as their one piece. If I was too high, it would affect the airflow into the airbox, which was really significant. um so were you lying down more i was lying down a bit more yeah um but snug you know the car i fitted that car um to perfection so you mentioned villeneuve your new teammate for 96 i remember quite a song and dance about him coming over from indy car and there'd been the big test indianapolis 500 and the indy you know he was a big shot well and i remember the test at Silverstone midway through 95 you know it's the do or die test is he gonna come isn't he what did you make of him both as a driver and as a as a personality um I liked him I liked his he was quirky was he 25 and I was 35 so I think he was 10 years younger than me maybe nine so he's a younger person and like to do things his own way and quite quirky in that way i mean he used to clean his teeth in the debrief room and stuff like that what mid debrief yeah you know so he's and he the thing is with jack is if he does something different and he gets a reaction out of people he's happy because he's he wants to be different so he doesn't have a belt on his overalls they look like they're about to fall off and stuff but he he liked that because everyone around would be reacting to his difference and his spiky hair and the various and the blonde hair yeah so yeah he he he made sure that it was clear the message from him was i'm going to do it my way which he certainly did and and did that sit well with williams because from the outside looking in back then at least williams was quite a traditional team frank yeah they were making they were making a lot of accommodations for him and i remember feeling a little bit uh annoyed at that because when I had been there for that amount of time, you know, I was, I had been a good boy and I'd done what they told me, but then I'd started as a test driver.

24:55I hadn't insisted on things, perhaps in the way I should have done. Um, now I was a little bit more established and more mature and I, they'd already indicated to me that they expected me to get the championship for them up against someone was an unknown quantity. Um, so I was a little bit more relaxed that year, But it was funny watching, you know, Jack with his curious quirkiness because Patrick is a very, what shall we say, conservative person. And you could see he wanted to say something, but he bit his lip and let Jack get on with it. There were a few sporting changes as well coming into the new season.

25:34I think perhaps the most visible was that the five red lights that we have now were first introduced in 1996. Were they? Yeah. Right. There was a race where they'd never, they didn't change or something happened. Do you remember they were supposed to go out? Is that why they changed them? Because it was a green light was supposed to come on. I think the red lights went out and the green light didn't come on or something. No, we didn't. Do we go? Don't we go? Yeah, exactly. So they fixed that. But was it, I mean, difficult to get your head around? No, I'm guessing. You just, what, the five lights thing?

26:02Yeah. No, these things are not important, Tom, honestly. You know, a signal to go is useful as long as we get that. We only had two starts. They used to, literally, a guy would wave a flag. He'd drop the flag. And all the drivers would work out each starter's, you know, quirkiness. And there would be certain flag people who would have a, they'd indicate that they were going to drop it by something. They'd scratch their nose or something. And everyone knew, so everyone would start before the bloke had even dropped it. I don't remember many penalties back then for dropping the start anyway, right?

26:34It was very random. Yeah. But you had two starts, actually, in Melbourne. First race, didn't you? Because there was, of course, the big crash. Yeah, there was the big crash on lap one, wasn't there, with Martin Brundle. Yes. So you had two goes at it. Look, talk us through that Melbourne weekend. You and Jacques in pre-season testing, it was clear that you guys were, maybe not a two-horse race for the title, but Williams were going to be the most competitive car. You know, like two boxes just sort of dancing around each other, round one. Jacques goes and puts it on pole. That wasn't in the script, was it?

27:06No, it wasn't, but it wasn't entirely unexpected. You know, I think that he was, uh, he came in at an attacking level of competitiveness, but you know, the points are given out when you cross the line at the end of the race. But yeah, I think I let him, I let him have a little bit of a, an advantage that I shouldn't have done perhaps then. But, um, what, what do you mean by that? Well, I wasn't, I don't remember doing a, an absolutely Banzai qualifying lap in, in Melbourne. and I don't know why, but... But why wouldn't? I mean, like, full sense of security. Is this... Yeah, maybe. Yeah, yeah. But I do remember during the race that it was quite easy to stick on his tail.

27:51And sure enough, an opportunity arose at that point. Well, mind you, you were covered in oil for most of that race, weren't you? How difficult is it when you can't see where you're going? Well, the only encouraging thing was I knew that eventually his oil would run out. so he can't keep puking a well out forever um but he had been on the grass a few times and well i the way i looked at jack was he was right on the edge and i wasn't so you know the the goal is to win at the slowest possible speed and you go on and win four of the opening five races right at that point what were you thinking um i've got this you know i you know i knew that there were going there's going to be a point in the season where i mean that advantage is really important to get.

28:38If you've got, there's going to be a time when Jack settles in and learns things and he goes to circuits that he's had some experience of and stuff. So I was going to lose that edge to him. He's going to come strong as the season went on or there's going to be some blip somewhere. And I was absolutely right. There always is in a championship season. Even though we only did 16 races back then, there's always a bit in the middle where the wheels come off literally and metaphorically in someone's championship. And you have to dig deep in those moments and put the car back on track before the end.

29:13I think there are three stages to your championship year. The dominance start after the struggles in 95. Just how sweet was it to be on that winning streak? Not only winning the races on Sunday, but actually Melbourne aside, knocking out the pole positions as well. it's the first time you'd had that sort of been on that wave wasn't it well i started every race on the front row and i think that's still a record i don't know but so it was pretty consistent in qualifying and i would i'd i'd got my qualifying performances down to a tee really and try and go out dead last um and you know when you go out the garage you go out sort of two and a half minutes to go because you'd worked out that when you cross the line all that stuff you know it was all going to plan on the qualifying stakes and um actually uh daria franchiti pointed out to me something which uh i'd forgotten about which was he said your qualifying lap in the nurburgring was really good and actually i'd forgotten about that one because that was a very it's a very unusual track because it's got a lot of banked corners but oh my god that that lap was almost perfect and it was such a thrill to do it you know in the car that was doing what you wanted it to do do you feel untouchable in those moments do you almost wish that michael schumacher was back in a benetton and you could actually i was quite glad to see where he was no i mean i obviously i still regard racing against michael and and suzuka as being the peak of whatever i could pull out of myself and so you need you want to be up against the very best to find out what you're capable of um but i have to say you know that those those guys like michael are able to perform at such a high level for their whole career you know they're they're constant um uh super quick drivers is it is quite it wears you down you know as a mere mortal i i i couldn't do that i could do it you know maybe if i'd started karting earlier maybe if i'd um had more confidence in myself I could have been up there but when 96 happened yes I was confident I pretty much knew I could beat Jack there were occasions when Jack was quicker than me and prepared to do things but then he was always on the the back foot trying to catch me up so he had to take more risks and you know Jack is the sort of person who does take a lot of risks um to get results whereas I looked the way I looked at it was I'm never going to get another chance again I cannot afford to put this in the wall and then miss a couple of races because they got a concussion or something and I remember Nigel you know eliminating himself from a championship or two by having a big shunt and not being able to to finish it off so I was aware that there is there's a pitfall there somewhere and it's about it's like playing cards you have to know when to play your ace card you know if you've got an ace in your hand you don't put it down you know at the first game you you've got to know when to play it.

32:17Yeah. Well, look, back to the different stages then. Dominate the early season. And then you said that the wheels in every championship come off literally and metaphorically. Let's talk Silverstone, right? I thought you were going to talk about Monza, but we'll get to Monza. Let's do this in chronological order. But, you know, you go to Silverstone, home race, there was so much hype around you then. How much of a kick in the stomach was it to end up in the gravel at Copse? yeah it was it was a wheel nut i think very unusual it was a wheel bearing failure i think mechanical failure unusual um does happen from time to time but so yeah i think i could have won that one you know so there was a few british grand prix's i'd nearly won i mean the 93 i nearly won it and had an engine block then there was one where i kind of brought defeat on myself by um by colliding with michael i really should have won that one anyway well and then there was Monaco as well, you know, which you were leading, dominating.

33:16Damon Hill out of the Monaco Grand Prix. He was destined not to win this race. And my goodness, the Englishman's heart will be plunging to his boots. Flames out of the back of the engine and Damon walks away. Oh, look, you can see the anguish as he clenches his fist to his helmet. that was a great weekend for Williams because we actually got the pit stop time to perfection which was uh was a new thing for us and it was you know it was just the perfect time to to change tires and go on to slicks and uh I was very comfortably in the lead but the Renault unfortunately had a little bit of a problem but those failures the new version of Damon Hill you got to factor them in you've got to factor them in at the start of the season you're not going to win everything that's totally unrealistic you've got to put down three races maybe to mechanical failures two at least and then maybe two to your own stupid fault so that's four races you know so so a monaco a silverstone didn't upset you you just put them behind you move on what can you do you know you they're gone yeah that's it that's that's in the bag that's that's part of the deal so you just go to the next race and make sure you're prepared for the next one.

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37:15Monza then. Frank gave you the bad news in the lead up to that race that you weren't going to be retained by the team. There were rumors. Don't forget there was... In Hungary there were rumors. It was leaked in Germany. Was it Germany? The Autosport piece by Andrew Benson, where he was front page of Autosport, was Damon's not staying at Williams next year. And I thought this was just newspaper sensationalism, just trying to create a story. So I was a bit annoyed to have him report this, but he was right. But did you confront Frank Williams about that story? I don't think, I think Patrick, I had some words with Patrick, but I don't remember too much about that.