Watching
The Wheels
My
Autobiography
By Damon
Hill
Foreword by
Sir Jackie Stewart
MacMillan
2016
“I could not have asked for more than to have
raced against the most successful racing driver of them all (Michael
Schumacher) – and won! And to think of
all the people who had told me that I was either too old, too slow, or too
late; or that I should get a proper job, or that I shouldn’t waste my education
on motor sport. When I think about that, I thank them for pressing my button:
the button that makes me think, “NO WAY!”. That button is still there. I can’t
help it. It’s deep, deep, deep inside me, but perhaps not so loud any more.”
It was my
son Steven who, in the early 1990s, latched onto Formula One but he tired of it
quickly after watching a couple of “boring” races. My other son David took up
the baton and has been a passionate and knowledgeable fan of the sport for over
twenty years. We watched almost all the races involving Damon Hill. We were big
fans. Even on holiday in some remote spots, we would spend (waste?) time trying
to find a TV in a bar or wherever to enjoy the races. On a connected note, also
abroad, we would spend (waste?) considerable time trying to find Autosport
magazine, always to no avail. David was, as they say, avid……. and sometimes
livid when we couldn’t find what we were looking for.
This was
the era of Damon Hill and, for a time his arch-rival, Michael Schumacher. There
were more exciting races than not and the rivalry of these drivers and other
feisty fighters thrilled and entertained us on most weekends. Add to that the
priceless enthusiasm and exuberance of commentator Murray Walker and it was a
classic time for fans. We cheered Hill
on to some brilliant victories and podium places. Our shoulders fell when he
crashed or his car conked out. We booed Schumacher but, really, we were in awe
of his amazing talent too.
This enthralling
autobiography of Damon Hill could have been a dull account of race after race,
about the shenanigans of Formula One’s organisation and administration, and a
rather stiff account of a short but superb career as a racing driver. But, far from it. This is a human story of a
man born into some privilege (in 1960) and into the spotlight that surrounded
his legendary father, Graham Hill, and how he carved his own niche as a
champion in his own right. The biggest personal moment in his life – at the age
of fifteen – was trying to come to terms with the shock news of his father’s
death in an aeroplane accident and the ensuing grief. Hill spends considerable
time analysing his father’s global fame versus the man he called Dad. He is also very sensitive to the sacrifices
his mother made to accommodate and support her husband’s career in a
relationship that was far from plain sailing.
The opening
pages of the book are rather stunning because Hill talks about his depression
after quitting racing. It is quite an open self-appraisal of how he and his
family were affected by the challenges of moving away from an adrenalin-filled
sport to a slower-paced normal life. It
is the beginning of quite a bit of self-diagnosis that is a theme throughout
the book, but not a theme that drags the story down. By revealing his thoughts, Hill injects
vulnerability, warmth, realism and, above all, humanity.
Young Damon
was not a fan of school or the education system generally. He got his inspiration from music, including
punk rock, and his kicks from motorbikes.
He would race when opportunities arose and he honed his skills as a
dispatch rider in London’s traffic, in the early 1980s. He had little interest in car racing. But he was interested in Susan George, not
the actress, but Georgie, the woman he would eventually marry and with whom he
would raise four children.
As the
years moved on, he devoted much of his time to motorcycle racing before
transferring to cars, in spite of his resistance to following in his father’s
footsteps. He was bitten by the
bug. He struggled to find sponsorship
but with a few benefactors, including George Harrison, he managed to scrape
funds together to progress through the Formula stages and eventually to the
pinnacle, Formula One, first with Brabham and then, from 1992, with Williams.
Hill worked
as a test driver for Williams, a kind of understudy role for Nigel Mansell,
before taking the wheel as Alain Prost’s team mate for the 1993 season. The
grid included names like Senna, Schumacher, Patrese, Zanardi, Herbert, Irvine,
Alesi and Berger. A nasty feud between
Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost gave the fans much to enjoy as these two top
drivers fought each other tooth and nail every chance they got. Hill was often
in amongst the tussles and passes and, as a result, was gaining valuable
experience and toughness as a respected racer.
He had to be sharp in his attempts to beat them, to avoid mistakes and
accidents. After a shaky start, he ended the season third in the championship
behind Prost and Senna, scoring a total of ten podium places including a hat
trick of wins.
The 1994
season was dominated by the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger in
separate circuit accidents at the San Marino Grand Prix. Damon Hill writes
candidly and movingly about events surrounding the accidents, focussing on
Senna’s because of his supreme status in the sport. There is still debate, more than twenty years
on, about Senna’s state of mind, about track safety and car reliability. It was
and still is a shocking weekend in Formula One’s history, the deaths of a young
driver in his third F1 race and a legend with seemingly nothing left to
prove. Controversially, the race was
restarted with Michael Schumacher winning and Damon Hill coming in sixth. In
the cold, hard world of sport, the show carried on but Formula One was never
quite the same. Hill ended the season second, winning six of the sixteen races.
He was
second in the championship in the 1995 season, enjoying/enduring a few tangles
with Michael Schumacher but 1996 was the year it all came good. All the struggles, challenges, emotional
rollercoasters, money problems, media attention, family pressures and
responsibilities, well as growing success, respect and confidence resulted in a
World Championship. It was
well-deserved. Hill, never really rated
as a great driver by some and not always appreciated whilst at Williams, had
proved an important point to his critics and to himself. Murray Walker’s “I’ve got to stop, because
I’ve got a lump in my throat” comments as the chequered flag dropped in Suzuka
showed his joy for Damon Hill’s victory and lingers long in the memory as a
pretty honest piece of commentary.
Hill moved
to Arrows for a year and, finally, to Jordan on a two-year deal. The Arrows season was dreadful but there were
more signs of hope and encouragement with Jordan. He earned the team their
first ever win. But after 1996, nothing was ever really satisfying and Hill
decided to end his career as a driver at the age of thirty-nine. He had had enough.
Damon Hill
has written an excellent autobiography, full of stories about the Formula One
circus, as we would expect, but infused with searing honesty about his life,
the tragedies and triumphs within it, and about how he dealt with severe
depression, navigating his way through some dark post-racing career times, and
emerging as a more settled man. His story is one of dreams and nightmares and
he is not afraid to let us into his world, a world that saw him join an elite
group of people – F1 World Champions.
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