The Strange F1 Champion Who Only Had TWO Good Races… ever

Formula 1 is often seen as the Pinnacle of Open Wheel Motorsport even if a driver comes from the likes of indie car in the United States or super formula in Japan most would jump at to shansen F1 with a few exceptions such as Legends like Scott Dixon who felt it was better to be a big fish in a small pond and continued racking up championships in America after his test with Williams and Toyota in 2004 rather than risk being chewed up and spat out by the often cruel nature of the revolving door of drivers who couldn’t adapt to their surroundings for one reason or another even despite the linear path from Modern Junior formulas to the big leagues 15 nationalities have won a Formula 1 World Championship from every continent except Asia meaning all of the Champions tend to come from distinctly unique backgrounds whether it’s Juan Manuel fangio who initially began his career as a riding mechanic or Graham Hill who didn’t even get a regular driving license by which V age Sebastian Veta was already crowned twice at 24 and even as racing has needed more dedication from early on in your life as the years have progressed you still get some interesting stories Jack velner whose opinions I covered in a video last week made the switch from indicar successfully and both Jensen button and niik rosberg spent up to 10 years before winning their only titles each but nonetheless they deserved them as contrived and controversial as some crowns can be 99% of the time you can say that the guy who eventually WN it at the end of the season deserved to do so the likes of Max for stappen in 2021 or Alan Prost in 1989 WN a sizable amount of erases on offer whilst being criticized for their onrack conduct but they’re still both amongst the greatest of all time whilst there are no completely mediocre or bad drivers who fluked their way into a title in a good car there have been ones who failed to achieve much outside of their titles in the rest of their career Phil Hill is a champion with the least amount of career points on 98 nearly half of Sterling Moss who is considered by most to be the best driver never to be crowned at the end of the season but it’s not Phil Hill that this video is going to focus on it’s his namesake who won his title 35 years after the American triumphed Damon that is that I’m going to focus on today let me tell you the story of the F1 champion who only had two good races [Music] ever ju Manel fjo is in the lead on the last lap of the German Grand Prix Jim Clark drives the Formula 1 lutus sport to Victory on the racetracks of the world hey look at that out that a colossally that’s Vel that is n Al Frost has taken the advantage Center is trying to go through on the inside and it’s happened immediately this is amazing Cent goes off at the first corner and I’ve got to stop because I’ve got to love B my thr despite being the son of a two-time world champion and the only winner of the triple Crow of Motorsports Damon Hill’s path to the top was nowhere near as easy as the likes of Mick Schumaker and Bruno Senna this was because when Graham died in a plane crash in 1975 by which time his son was just 15 he had failed to complete a lot of the paperwork surrounding the aircraft he was flying meaning he was essentially doing the aviation equivalent of driving with noot or Insurance the family fortune was eaten Away by their legal expenses that arose from the accident which meant that if Damon wanted to start a driving career he’d have to work his way up from the bottom of the ladder with none of the lovely nepotism other relatives of great names had access to he started racing motorcycles in 1981 until his mom asked him to switch over to Cars 3 years later over safety concerns and then came third in the 1985 Formula Ford Festival he remained competitive in British F3 through 1986 and 87 before coming third in this series 2 in 1988 beating future boat Enthusiast JJ letto and future nons Gary braam as well as finishing second in the Macau Grand Prix behind enrio bagia Hill struggled to keep his career going in 1989 only doing part-time campaigns in international f3000 the final step before Formula 1 and British F3 again while doing One race in the British Touring Car Championship and also running the 24-hour race for Richard Lloyd racing in a Porsche 962 as the new decade came around though he landed a full-time f3000 drive with middlebridge racing and finished 13th in the championship only scoring points once with a second place at br’s hatch while running a second full-time campaign in 1991 he landed a test drive with the Williams F1 team back in the days before dedicated for racing talent to come through the routes and come into F1 teams at increasingly young ages it was often believed that those who became test drivers were washed up because they couldn’t land a full-time seat with any proper team so when Damon signed for the Grove outfit taking over duties from Mark Blundell having not even raced in the top category despite being a relatively old 31 years old by F1 standards it was believed that he would follow the trend of test drivers not achieving much in their careers he completed his schedule in f3000 for 1991 finishing seventh in the standings with one Podium that he achieved in nagaro then in 1992 was made the reserve driver for Williams which could have easily materialized into something more quite quickly as the team number one Nigel Manel broke his foot of the season finale of 1991 in Adelaide yet the Plucky Brits decided to race the entire of a championship campaign in ’92 despite incredible pain and uncomfortableness Damon wouldn’t have to wait for a seat to open up at Williams though as after giovana am mati embarrassed herself in the free races she did for braam and then didn’t pay them the sponsorship money she owed it opened up a seat for Hill to swoop in and Meg’s debut at the Spanish Grand Prix the braam outfit had very much fallen from their peak of around a decade earlier going from driver’s champion ships to struggling to qualify for every race and mere 6 years later a trend that hadn’t been booked by the time 1992 rolled around the new British recruit will be partnered by ex scooteria Moder driver Eric vanera who is entering his sophomore F1 season Hill was out qualified by the Belgian by 9/10 of a second in Catalonia in 30th and last place two positions behind his counterpart as both failed to reach the top 26 to actually get into the race his form improved in IMA though as he put four temps on vanera as the pair were the two slowest cards with didn’t get into the main event then had the same margin that he put on his teammate inima put on him at the Monaco Grand Prix vaner was only 36,000 away from the magic top 26 but then in Montreal and magnor Damon was 1.3 seconds away from his inter team adversary and last but then made that up in his home race at silverston by putting a massive more than two seconds on him and more importantly sneaking onto the Grid in 26th and last place making the team’s first start since the season opener in Kyle Army he finished 16th and last on Sunday four laps down but the car was undoubtedly the worst of those who made it to the checked flag at hackenheim vaner POA put three4 of a second on Hill as the Brit was last in 30th again but for the Hungarian event Eric saw the writing on the wall for the braam outfit and jumped ship to fellow back marker fund metal leaving Damon as the team’s only remaining driver he qualified a season High 25th at a track he’d later grow a great affiliation to in his career and survived an attritional Sunday to get another season high in 11th place but after that result the Bram team fought olded after 30 years in F1 having experienced a range of difficulties since ex-owner Bernie eilon directed his Focus to running Formula 1 as a whole leaving the team operation in 1987 which instigated a merry-go round of new benefactors who had ulterior motives and didn’t want to resurrect The Fortunes of a multiple Championship winning team also just referencing that Hungary bit I have done a video on Damon Hill’s love affair with the hungar roing if you’d like to check it out in the top right corner of your screen H was out of a drive for the rest of the season and when Ricardo portrays left Williams to join Benetton thinking he would be forced out so the team could create a combination of two of either Alan Prost who was returning from his sabatical Aton Senna or the incumbent Champion Nigel Manel only one of these three actually ended up with a seat at the reigning Champions Senna couldn’t be there if Prost was due to a contract clause put up by Alan vetoing the Brazilian and Nigel refused to accept being the number two driver like Alan also insisted I’ll say one thing Alan PR was a bloody fantastic driver but man was he probably the most politically inclined of them more with Senna Manel and Petra all missing out on the second seat Damon was pretty much the only option the team had left and so he lined up alongside the returning three-time Champion going from one of if not the worst teams on the grid to undoubtedly the best one at the first round of 1993 in KY Army while Prost got Pole Position Hill was 1.9 seconds behind in fourth but the Breck crashed with Alex zardi on lap 16 before he could have a chance to recover he finished the Brazilian Grand Prix in second behind Center then in Donnington finished runner up to the dominant Aon in the wet while Allan stalled in his pit box during one of the countless rounds of pit stops with P made Hills breaks went on lap 20 in IMA then in catalunia his engine expired 23ds of a way through the race during the Monaco Grand Prix Prost jumped the start and was given a 10-second stop go but was stuck in the pits for 90 seconds as he stalled twice trying to exit yet he drove his socks off to only finish around half a minute off of Damon while setting a fastest lap a full second quicker than the Englishman in Canada the first both drivers finished without any caveats Alan won 52 seconds ahead of his team counterpart who was third then Hill out qualified him for the first time all year in magne cor and finished less than a second behind on race day Damon suffered engine failure in silverston on the same lap as it was in Spain that being number 41 while he was leading following a safety car restart then in hackenheim Prost got a bad start dropping to Fourth before passing Center on the run up to the first chicane on the old layout then of the second chicane Martin brundle behind him spun in the breaking Zone and nearly collected the French driver yet he swerved and avoided him by bypassing the corner both drivers got a 10-second stop go for cutting the course and Allan served his penalty after he’d overtaken Hill on lap 10 despite the infraction costing him in excess of 20 seconds he was on a charge to re overtake his teammate who had led since the 10th tour and had closed to within 8 Seconds of him by the penultimate lap however Hill’s Tire punctured on approach to the thir chican with less than two to go and retired from the race handing the win to Prost everything fell together for the British driver in Hungary though as although Prost stalled on the formation lap meaning he started last then finished seven laps down due to having to sit in the pits to repair a problem with the rear wing Damon dominated the affirs at his favorite track lapping everyone up to Fourth and finishing 71 seconds clear of second place Ricardo Petra a slow stop for Allan on Sunday in Spa after demolishing Hill in qualifying by 9/10ths left a Brit to claim another win V mza struck lucky again as prost’s engine expired with just five laps left while leading handing another top result to his teammate Hill started at the back in esteril as his own car refused to start up on the formation lap and he recovered to an impressive third but in Suzuka the French Williams driver was more than a minute clear of his adversary as he adapted better to the changeable conditions at the final round in Adelaide Damon was challenging Allan for second place when he got on the power too early coming out of a deaville hairpin and spun meaning he finished 20 seconds behind on reflection Hills 1993 season was a mixed bag he got two more retirements than Prost none of which were his fault apart from turning in on zard in Kyle Army both Williams drivers lost two certain wins due to bad luck or reliability and despite Alan fumbling the bag in Brazil and Monaco he still outscored Damon by a margin of three race victories it was still a good year for Hill though as he had shown glimpses of potential beating his teammate on Merit at points but also lacked consistency such as in that Suzuka race where he was beaten by over a minute despite Prost being not at all fond of the electronically aided cars he put half a second on Damon in qualifying on average and beat him by half a minute on average in the race has both of them finished without issue going into 1994 though proost retired from F1 and Hill received a new teammate another legendary driver the Freetime Champion Aon CNA the Williams package had lost its utter dominance due to the Banning of driver raids such as traction control in ABS and was now only marginally faster than the second fastest car produced by Benetton at least for the first portion of the Season Senna showed his extreme qualifying prowess on home turf in the season opener interos by putting his car on Pole Position 1 Point 6 seconds clear of Hill in fourth but he spun out chasing Schumaker for the win during the latter stages leaving his teammate to pick up the scraps and finish runner up behind the German himself Aon put six atts on Damon in Aida on Saturday then crashed out at turn one after being hit by a mahaken while Damon spun off trying to overtake the fin on lap three before climbing back up to Second his Transmissions failed on lap 46 allowing shimaka to cruise to another easy Victory and with their double retirement in Japan the Williams team were only fourth in the Constructor standings at this point in the year behind Ferrari and the vastly inferior Jordan but sen worked his magic in imil qualifying again putting six TS on Hill getting pole while the Brit was forth we all know what happened during the race Aton crashed on lap seven coming through tamell and was killed by an erant piece of suspension entering the cockpit which prompted many safety protocols being introduced into F1 in the coming years meanwhile on the restart following s’s death Hill damaged his nose cone tried to overtake schuma and had to pit to replace it only recovering to six the weekend in mon was a tough one for Williams as they only fielded one car for Damon but he qualified fourth one and a half seconds off of schumacker and crashed with hacking on lap one meaning it was another bad result after four races Michael led the standings on 40 points meanwhile Hill was third on just seven and the team had fallen to fifth in the constructors Hill was HED his first win of the season on a plate in Spain as Schumaker finished second after being stuck in fifth gear for a large portion of the race the Gap was now 29 Points to Michael the Bon driver caned to another victory in Canada while he was second 49 seconds clear of his new teammate a rookie David kard then Nigel Manel entered the driving seat alongside Damon in magnicore and would compete in every remaining round but didn’t clash with his C commitments over in the states a 41-year-old Mansel who had been out of F1 for a year and a half qualified less than a tenth behind Hill in first with Michael just behind the pair then during the race the endstone team competitor got the best start and held the lead throughout the entire race apart from during the pit stop phases Schumaker was Now 37 points and nearly four race wins clear of hill with standings then at silverston the complexion of a championship completely changed Michael overtook Damon on the formation lap on Sunday twice after qualifying just 0.03 seconds behind and was given a 5-sec stop Ando penalty for this infringement on lap 14 he had failed to serve as punishment in due course though and was black flagged on lap 21 however the Benetton team said there had been a misunderstanding and pulled shimaka in on the 27th tour to sort out the issue by serving the penalty Michael initially finished second and was given a severe reprimand for initially ignoring the Black Flag while his team was given a $25,000 fine 5 days before the next race at hackenheim though the world Motorsport Council increased the financial damage to half a million dollars and issued Schumaker with a two- race ban bennetton instantly issued an appeal though so Michael would be able to compete while investigations were ongoing personally I believe that the initial decision was too weak but the proposed ban was far too harsh a penalty I think it would have been fair to give a fine somewhere in the middle maybe around $250,000 and disqualify Schumaker from Silverstone for ignoring a Black Flag whether intentionally or not and the way I see it the attempt to stop Schumaker from racing was a ployed to make the title fight which didn’t exist beforehand actually feasible as a possibility nonetheless this brought Hill back into play although in Germany he couldn’t capitalize on an engine failure for the home hero because he himself Tangled with ukio katayama’s tirl forcing a long pit stop and getting suspension damage schuma LED Daman home in both the Hungarian qualif fing and race sessions which put the gap between the pair up to 31 points then the same thing was projected to happen in Spar as they were two three behind a surprise Jordan of Ruben’s barello on Saturday then in the race finished line of stern again in first and second after the race though Schumaker was disqualified from the win because his wooden skid block a simple device brought in to stop teams from running their cars excessively low to the ground and potentially bought them out was worn down too much beniton argued that this was because of a spin he had at the F chicane but the FIA weren’t having it and the disqualifications stood losing the Gap to 21 points to make things worse shaka’s two race band from earlier was upheld on appeal after the Belgium race which meant he’d miss both the Italian and Portuguese Grand Prix both of which Hill won even though his teammate David kard followed him home the entire way both times OD Michael’s return with three races to go in herf the Gap had narrowed from 37 points before the British race to just one he came back in style by winning from pole position with the fastest lap then the Japanese Grand Prix hosted the penultimate round in Suzuka it was held in in the pouring rain and following a red flag on lap 13 while schumak pulled out a 7c lead on the restart Hill drove like a manp possessed to not only overtake the rid Meister in such conditions but also pull a 10-second gap on him which was enough to win the last ever red flaged Formula 1 race to be held on aggregate in two separate parts he realistically needed to win that race because if he’d finished second behind shimaka again the Gap would have been nine points going into the final race in Adelaide instead of nine though they were now one point apart with Schumaker ahead but it was the Williams of mantel on pole down under a full 6 and 1 half temps clear of Damon in third the championship protagonist launched into the leading two positions of a startv with gaps ebbing and flowing until up 36 Michael went wide at the East Terrace Corner hitting the outside wall then at the following Corner Hill saw an opportunity to send a move at the Germans inside while he recovered Schumaker turned into him sending his beniton onto two wheels into the barriers and out of the race meanwhile Damon made it back to the pits but was forced to retire with suspension damage many have accused schumacker of deliberately turning into Hill but I don’t fully agree with his conclusion firstly Michael had just gone off track and most likely wasn’t thinking about Damon sending such an audacious dive bomb but I also think it’s on Hill himself for going for a gap like that not learning from his spin against Prost at a different corner of the same circuit the year prior it’s very likely Michael would have had at least some damage and had he been significantly hampered in terms of pace the Williams would have Breeze past on any one of The Straits Michael had a punch on for unsportsman likee condu I understand that but considering the toxicity and heavy bias of the British media I do think they perpetuated a lie that schumacker intentionally hit Damon as a coping mechanism if Damon was a worthy Champion he should have won it at a caner even at the start of the season the Williams was undoubtedly the fastest car and once upgrades came in through the first half it lost its difficulty to drive putting it a level above the beniton if that wasn’t enough Michael lost 16 points directly due to disqualifications both of which were arguably unfair and got a two race band which lost him another 20 points which was frankly utter rubbish Damon got unlucky too getting involved in three on track squabbles before Adela that also lost in points but he had the title handed to him on a plate by the fa and he still squandered it to lose a championship in the outright best car is bad enough but when your rival has their results from four races literally deleted you have no excuse as well as looking at his fight with shumako we’ve got to look at how he stacked up against his teammates too obviously Senna never finished a race with the team but pulled the full second on hill on averaging qualifying and I know that you can argue that comparing any driver against Center on Saturdays is unfair but I expect him to at least be in the ballpark and not behind other much slower cars He TRS to rookie kard overall although in Monza and esteril I think David had started to equal Damon in RAC trim but I think the biggest example in his underperformance was against Mansel Nigel was 41 years old and came back at the French Grand Prix only 77 thousands off him in qualifying and although he lost out in RAC Pace especially in Suzuka where even I’ll admit Damon did a fantastic drive you shouldn’t be letting someone like Nigel qualify seven TS ahead of you when you’re fighting for a world championship people always talk about how if Senna did the full season in 1994 he’d have won the title but I’d go as far to say but if man saw start of the year in the car he’d have been able to do so as well going into 1995 Hill was clearly searching for revenge on Schumaker but I don’t think it was in a sense of crashing like how his season eventually ended up Kord was selected to part him and Williams had an even more competitive car 94 but the reigning Runners up retired in the first round of the season with gearbox failure while leading it was David who qualified on polling buenos Ides by 8/10ths although Damon had the win handed to him when throttle problems for the Scot forced him out then in imer pit stock problems meant David finished 50 seconds behind his teammate again in Spain Hill dropped to Fourth on the last lap with hydraulics issues while karda gearbox failure then the English driver finished second in Monaco behind Schumaker while David was involved with a crash with j Lacy and Gard Berger on the opening lap Hill had gearbox failure in Canada and his teammates spun off on lap two which allowed Bon’s star driver Schumaker to pull a gap on the lead Williams driver despite his own problems relegating him to fifth Hill finished second behind the German in magnor then in silverston more controversy came around between the pair for the second year running as the Brit ran into the back of Michael while trying to overtake him sending both into retirement and kard lost a certain win due to faulty Electronics messing up his pit lane speed limiter and getting him a 10-second stop go penalty Hill had a drive shaft failure in hackenheim and shu’s two-stop strategy beat David to the win by 5 Seconds increasing the gap between Damon and Michael to 21 points in the Benetton driver’s favor Damon won as his eternal best track in Hungary while shaka’s fuel pump failed to bring him within 11 points Vin Spar the rain Meister won from 16th on the grid with Hill second the pair collided again in Monza and Hill was given a One race suspended ban for causing the crash that sent them both out then in esteril kard surprisingly scored the championship protagonists by winning with Michael second and Damon third with four rounds remaining Schumaker led by 17 points over his English adversary and when Hill spun off at the nurburg ring while Michael won the championship was pretty much sealed in his favor then it was confirmed in AA as Damon got third with Michael Victorious again the British driver spun-off in Suzuka then won the season finale in Adelaide by two laps as none of the other top teams drivers finished the race Schumaker beat hill by 33 points despite both only having three retirements that weren’t their fault and the Williams was the infinitely better car so the fact that Hill lost the title due to an array of spins and crashes with Michael meant this really was an awful season for him kard just about beat Damon on average in qualifying and in the races was only marginally behind so when David left the Grove outfit to join McLaren for the money the Englishman probably breathed a sigh of relief because he was slowly losing grip on the number one driver status in the team reigning indie car and Indie 500 Champion jacqu vilner joined Hill at Williams in 1996 and went on an intense six- week testing schedule SCH to get a climatized to F1 on his debut at the Australian Grand Prix he qualified on pole and led until an oil leak forced him to drop back and finish second to Damon Hill won in Brazil while the ner spun off then in Argentina pulled 12 seconds on his teammate by the checker flag and took his third Victory on the bounce ja got the upper hand at the nurburging by winning in just his fourth race start finishing half a minute ahead of Damon who was fourth venet imer hill won while V nerve retired with suspension failure after recovering from a puncture on the first lap both drivers tied in the chaotic Monaco Grand Prix then Damon did so again in Spain after spinning off three times in the downpour conditions in just 12 laps while jacqu was third filner followed his teammate home in a onew finish at his home race in Canada and again in Magny cor and won in silverston when Damon was sluggish off a start and retired due to wheelnut problems it was Hill on top again in hackenheim with the Canadian third however in Hungary it was the rookie who won on the englishman’s favorite circuit at Spar Pit Stop miscommunications between a Runners up V and the Williams crew me his adversary was unable to run the optimal strategy and finished fifth controversies arose in Monza as both Grove drivers fa to score points due to contact with Tire Stacks being placed at the Rilo chicanes then in esteril Jack LED Damon home for his fourth victory of the Season closing the Gap in the championship to just nine points heading into the final race in Suzuka V nve took pole but had a slow start and eventually retired with wheel trouble and it handed Hill his first world title on a plate it took for him to not just have a completely dominant car but also a rookie teammate who had two more problems in races than he did one of which could have seen him lose to a guy competing in his first F1 race after four seasons in the Undisputed fastest machine on the grid he’d won just one championship and while I can excuse losing to Alan Prost in 1993 and he should have had 1994 and 95 so far wrapped up that you wouldn’t have smelt the body even if you were only 2 m away from it the nve lost a potential 14 points more than Damon due to things outside of his control in 1996 which would have put him just five behind in the end of season tally a guy with the experience of Hill should not have been that close to a rookie end of the strange thing about his championship though was that he knew he wouldn’t be at Williams for 1997 regardless of his results after the merry go round of 1993 where the team went from having five driver candidates to barely having two because they backstabbed the guy who won a title with a broken foot you’d think they’d have figured out how not to annoy their number one drivers well as it turned out they’d learned nothing as Hill was told by Frank Williams and Patrick head that after his bad 199 5 season he’d be dropped at the end of 96 regardless of how he performed so for the second time in four years Williams were binning off their reigning Champion for an unproven quantity in 1993 it was Hill himself but here it was hin Harold frenson if you also include Nelson PK and Prost leaving after their triumphs that’s four champions in nine Seasons not only did Frank annoy Damon though he also ticked off his chief designer Adrien newie who hadn’t been consulted about dropping Hill despite it stipulating in his contract that he would be part of a choice about which drivers drove for the team so he went on to gardening leave to join McLaren while vmer won his own title in the design new he created given Damon’s overall mediocrity and V’s sheer drop off in performance as soon as he wasn’t in a new desired Williams there’s a case to be made that both were just average drivers whose lack of Championship credentials were hidden by the lack of knowledge of just how dominant those cars were there’s a good chance that in an alternate timeline with a schumacker or hackin and level driver in control that we could look back on the 1996 and 97 Williams car just as fondly as we do with Mansel and prost’s fw14 and fw15 Bs while his ex- teammate romped to his own solitary Crown Hill moved over to TWR arrows a project run by Tom Wilkin Shaw racing who were looking to become a new force in Grand Prix racing which meant that signing Hill was obviously a counterintuitive move they signed Pedro Den as Damon’s teammate an ex40 and Li driver who was literally only bought in to bank roll the outfit and pay Hill’s massive salary the reigning Champion finished just one of the first six races in 1997 and even that one in Brazil was classified in 17th after a late engine failure two of these were early collisions but the others were reliability rated he only retired from two more races in the rest of the season and scored points only two times a SI and silverston was one of them but in Hungary Damon put on the performance of his life he put his car third on the grid just four attemps off a PO position in third place and assumed second behind Michael schumacker until he overtook him on lap 12 then the English driver built up a colossal 35 second lead over the second place driver Jack vve until his hydraulic pump failed on lap 74 leaving him stuck in third gear and having only an intermittent throttle he was passed for the lead on the final lap and finished 9 seconds behind so the same driver who twice couldn’t beat Michael schumacker in an infinitely faster car can lead by over 35 seconds in a terribly unreliable ship box that’s the seventh or eighth fastest car on the grid it would be like valter botas winning in a stake in 2024 overall Damon’s 1997 season was a right off but he moved to Jordan for 1998 reuniting with his former Junior series boss Eddie Jordan in F1 it wasn’t until the 11th round in hackenheim where he scored his first points of the year and fourth then he got the same position in Hungary at the Belgian Grand Prix he started third and avoided the first lap chaos that forced seven cars into retirement and involved 13 competitors in total then of the restart got a great launch and assumed the lead his old rival Michael schuma went past on lap 8 but on lap 26 he failed to negotiate for slowing David k who he was attempting to lap the pair collided and both retired from the race with terminal damage leaving Hill back in the lead again with his teammate Ralph Schumaker right behind Ralph was obviously the faster driver gaining up to 7 seconds per lap but it was on average about two or three quicker every time I went around until one lap after Damon assumed P1 the safety card came out for a collision involving Jan Cara fella and Shinji Naro the Brit who was leading was told about his teammate’s Pace over the radio and his engineer suggested he let Ralph through but Damon rejected this idea and suggested he wouldn’t give up the position without a fight he said that if they fought for first and ended up crashing the team could lose out on not just their first win but they’re made in one two some believe it was a cryptic message that if Ralph attempted to overtake Damon then he would crash him out but I don’t think that was the case I genuinely believe he was saying that so Eddie Jordan could weigh up the potential risk for one of them making a mistake and taking them both out it was certainly convenient that a side effect of not battling would guarantee a hill win but I don’t think there was any malice behind it just competitive Spirits Damon won with Ralph second although the German and his brother were Furious about the team orders dished out and Michael bought out Ralph’s contract with the Irish outfits because they were unhappy with him not being allowed to fight for wins the rest of 1998 was fairly quiet but for 1999 Hill would ironically be partnered at the buzzen Hornets by the guy who replaced him at Williams just two years earlier hin Harold fren the German won two races and made a surprise half challenge for the title when mkah Hainan and Eddie Irvine seemed to be doing everything in their power not to win the championship but on the other side of a Jordan garage Damon scored points only four times now as much as I’ve bashed Hill’s reputation with a cricket bat in this video I will defend his 54-7 point strumming that he received from fren in 1999 he retired from nine races compared to fren’s three with five of those being collisions three being mechanically induced and the one at the final round of the year in Suzuka was because he’d mentally checked out and parked a healthy car in the pits instead of finishing his final outing it was clear that he wanted to have a British Grand Prix be’s final race but Eddie Jordan wouldn’t let him retire so he just couldn’t be asked after that and it reflected in his results looking back on his career Damon was a very peculiar driver he started out struggling to even qualify for races and went from arguably the worst car in 1992 to undoubtedly the best in 1993 and although we lost to Prost I think that it was inevitable given his experience even if Allan didn’t like the way of Williams handled 1994 and 1995 were embarrassing though what should have been two dead on titles which either failures or abject failures and though I’ll give him some leeway in the performances immediately after Sen’s death because of grieving the Hideous gaps before that and the horrendous ones after were embarrassing often losing to Schumaker in a straight fight and fumbling despite the German being pegged back 36 points and being in an inferior car the high point of Suzuka is undoubtedly in the top three races of Damon’s entire career and it proved he did have an incredibly high performance ceiling but he couldn’t activate it very often at all in 19 1995 the thing he couldn’t activate was his eyes though constantly spinning out or crashing into Schumaker losing out by 33 points in what was the best car by a considerable margin 1996 was a given as the machine he drove was twice as dominant as the year before and he had a rookie teammate but it certainly didn’t seem that easy the nerve was very close and on average in Races they both had no problems in it was a Canadian who was actually faster then he’ll beat the pay driver Pedro Den well done and also had one of the top 10 Race performances in F1 history in my opinion in Hungary again proving he had a fantastically high performance ceiling but was almost never consistently at that level 1998 was literally only the fluke Belgian win that was by default then 1999 was a right off he also had a very short career for a champion only doing s and a half Seasons which was probably more due to the fact that he only started an F1 at the age of 31 and only started car racing at the age of 23 the similarities with his dad’s career are quite ironic too starting very late having to Rally his team around him after the of a generation defining driver then spending the years after his title win mostly falling back into mediocrity Graham’s career was nearly 2 and a half times as long as Damon’s but despite Damon making his debut just a year older than his dad it was much more common for drivers to go into their mid-40s and the 7s than it was in the ’90s Damon wasn’t a bad driver by any stretch and he wasn’t completely Unworthy of his championship but he wouldn’t have been anywhere near a title if he was in a car on par with the likes of Schumaker and not one miles better anyways with that being said I think that brings today’s video to a close I hope you enjoyed me detailing Damon Hill’s career and if you did please remember to like comment and subscribe to see more content from me in the future you can also subscribe to my patreon if you’d like to see exclusive content get videos a day early and have an opportunity to converse with me personally for as little as $1 or1 per month big shout out to my already existing patreon subscribers Andy Lamberts Aman alaly and George Stratford and you can also follow my / Twitter account where I post boiling hot lava takes on F1 indicar and NASCAR and follow my Instagram for behind the scenes updates with my Shameless plugging out the way though I’m nzo and I’ll see you all later bye