Damon Hill: Death always on his mind, turned down Ferrari offer – because of Schumacher

It was the highlight of his Formula 1 career: Damon Hill became World Champion at the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka on 13 October 1996. Just as his father, Graham Hill (champion in 1962 and 1968), had done years earlier.

A few years ago, Damon Hill, now 66, shared some very personal memories of his father with our colleagues at The Guardian. Damon looked back on his childhood, which was marked by fear for his father, Graham Hill.

“Back then, Formula 1 was horrific,” emphasises Damon, who admits: “Death was always a presence in my childhood.”

“It was a brutal sport. I remember thinking back then that my father might not be around by next Christmas, or perhaps even by next week. Part of me was in awe that my father was someone special and did something dangerous. But another part of me just thought: ‘I don’t want him to die, I don’t want him to do that.’»

“The whole family revolved around Dad’s wishes. My mum’s main job was to make sure everything went according to his plans. My sisters and I only came second in this scheme of things.”

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“My sister Brigitte is 18 months older than me; Samantha is four years younger. We had a certain amount of sibling rivalry when we were younger, as we were all vying for our father’s attention. As Graham Hill’s only son, I was constantly being put in cars and photographed – unlike my sisters.”

Then came that fateful 29 November 1975, when Hill and five other members of his team lost their lives in a plane crash. Hill was piloting the Piper Aztec, which he’d bought with his Indy 500 prize money, when it crashed in thick fog over the village of Arkley in the UK whilst approaching Elstree Airport.

Damon continued: “I was 15 years old when my father died. His death was an emotional bombshell. It came out of the blue – my father had only just hung up his racing helmet, and my mother, my sisters and I had finally put aside the worries we’d been carrying around with us for years.”

“His death hit us very hard. There was a hole – a crater – where he used to be. I coped with it by telling myself: ‘It’s no good feeling sorry for yourself. We were lucky enough to have spent time with him.’”

But the loss of his father also brought with it a new sense of freedom. Damon explains: “I cherished my father more than anything, but when he died, I had the chance to be myself. There was this feeling of relief. I no longer had to worry about whether my father approved of what I was doing. It was a complicated sense of freedom that came at the cost of his life.”

It was only after his father’s death that Damon Hill turned to racing: “My father’s death awakened in me the desire to follow his example and become a racing driver. Before he died, I’d never felt the need to race, and perhaps that desire would never have arisen if he hadn’t died – I really don’t know. But I do know that I haven’t missed it all that much since I gave it up.”

The 22-time Grand Prix winner admits frankly: “Through racing, I kept the memory of my father alive. My achievements were my own, but they were inevitably always linked to my father’s legacy. In a way, that allowed me to get to know him as an adult, in a way I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to. Because I knew what he’d had to go through, I grew closer to him. But it’s very difficult to follow the same career path as your father when he was so successful.”

Damon Hill and the offer from Ferrari

In early 2026, Damon Hill appeared as a guest on the Stay on Track podcast, where his former track rival Johnny Herbert works as a co-host. Herbert, who is English, asked his compatriot whether he, Damon, would ever have driven for Ferrari.

Hill replied: “I can certainly imagine that there might have been a possibility. I had one very fundamental rule: I want to be in the best car, with the best chance of success. So if the Ferrari had been one of the best cars, then …”

Before the podcast’s listeners could catch their breath, Hill added: “Well, I turned it down. I was in desperate need of a seat at the time, and Ferrari team principal Jean Todt suggested I pop round and have a chat with him, so we could discuss the whole thing, with no strings attached.”

“So I drove to Italy and met him at a house. Todt said to me: ‘Damon, you’d have to be number two behind Michael.’»

“So I turned down that generous offer. For me, it was an offer I had to turn down. Looking back, perhaps I should have done things differently; perhaps I really should have gone to Ferrari.”

“Be that as it may – it doesn’t matter any more, because someone asked Jean Todt years ago whether this offer had been made, and he denied that I’d ever spoken to him. So I must have dreamt the whole thing!”

Hill didn’t move to Ferrari for 1997, but to the Arrows team. There, he came within a hair’s breadth of winning the Ungam Grand Prix, but a hydraulic fault slowed Damon down, and on the final lap Jacques Villeneuve managed to snatch the lead from him!

Hill moved to Jordan for 1998 and secured the team’s first victory there, at Spa-Francorchamps in 1998.