Damon Hill

Damon is the son of two-time F1 champion, the late Graham Hill. Damon Hill actually began his racing career on motorbikes in 1979. In '84, while still racing bikes, he had his first taste of auto racing in Formula Ford. In 1985 he switched to FF full time and finished 3rd in the Esso championship with 6 wins. He moved onto F3 in 86 with Murray Taylor Racing and then with Intersport in 87 and 88. From 89 to 91 he competed in F3000 with Footwork, Middlemarch and Lola without great success except that he did get a testing contract with Williams in 91 replacing Mark Blundell.

Hill broke into F1 the next year, 1992, with Brabham, again without great success. In eight attempts in an uncompetitive car, he qualified just twice finishing 16th and 11th. His big break came in 93 when he signed for Williams. That year he scored he scored his first F1 win in Hungary, completing a hat-trick over the next two races in Belgium and Italy. He finished the season with 69 points for 3rd place in the championship.

In '94, still with Williams, Hill came as close to winning it all as is possible without actually doing it. Coming in to the last race of the season in Adelaide, Hill trailed Michael Schumacher by one point. Depending on your point of view they either had a coming together or Schumacher drove into Hill thereby securing the Championship by that one point margin. Hill again challenged Schumacher for most of the '95 season but fell apart somewhat in the second half of the season. He finished 2nd in the championship with 69 points.

In 1996, still with Williams, he finally won the World Championship with relative ease. His only real competition came from team-mate Villeneuve who made a slow start to the season and was unable to catch Hill despite some impressive results towards the end of the season. The championship did go to the last race of the season with Hill needing just a 6th place to secure the title. Villeneuve gave himself very little chance after a bad start and Hill took an easy lead. The matter was finally settled when Villeneuve lost a wheel and crashed out. 96 was also a significant year for Hill in that he was not re-signed by Williams who announced half way through the season that he was being replaced by Frentzen. With very few options, he turned down offers from Jordan and Stewart and signed a one year deal with TWR Arrows.