02-07-2025
How family tragedy drove unlikely Formula 1 star Damon Hill to victory... CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Hill
Murray Walker, the greatest of all commentators, was not often lost for words. But emotion got the better of him as Damon Hill claimed the F1 World Championship in 1996.
'And, I've got to stop,' Murray growled hoarsely, 'because I've got a lump in my throat.'
His unmistakable voice, like the scream of a 500hp turbo- engine, seemed to have grit in the gearbox.
Hill's victory was especially significant for the sport because he was the son of another Formula 1 world champion, the swashbuckling Graham Hill, who died in a plane crash along with five members of his team in 1975.
Throughout the documentary Hill, charting Damon's career in motor-racing, his father's ebullient personality was ever-present as a sort of background roar, like the sound of a high-performance car.
Snatches of home video were intercut with archive news footage. In one snippet, Bruce Forsyth chatted to Graham at Brands Hatch. The two men could have been -brothers - the same long nose and jutting chin, not to mention the pencil moustaches.
An adolescent Damon lurked shyly beside his dad. 'Say something,' urged Brucie.
'Something,' whispered the boy.
Snatches of home video are intercut with archive news footage and F1 racing scenes
'He's not like you, he can't chat as much!' chortled Bruce, elbowing Graham.
That moment epitomised Damon's relationship with his father's memory. 'I didn't want to be pushed into the limelight,' he mused. 'If your dad is the star of the show, then who are you?'
An introspective man - his wife, Georgie, calls him, 'one of the saddest people I'd ever come across in my life' - Hill Jnr insisted at the start of this affecting and melancholy film that he 'never wanted to become a racing driver'.
But he also felt compelled to compete and win, in tribute to his father. Gradually, it became clear why Hill always seemed so unlike other drivers.
A devoted father and husband, he couldn't have been more different from the roguish, womanising James Hunt - a man who once staggered into the paddock still half-drunk from a wild one-night stand, and proceeded to break lap records on his way to the podium.
Damon had none of Michael Schumacher's arrogance, Alain Prost's confidence or Ayrton Senna's supernatural aura. Even his team bosses seemed to take his self-deprecating jokes at face value: they sacked him when he was leading the championship.
But what emerged from this sensitive film, written and directed by Alex Holmes, was the portrait of a spiritual man who was deeply traumatised by loss.
He was 15 when a TV bulletin broke the news of his father's death. He had to tell his mother, who collapsed. Financial ruin for the family followed.
For F1 fans, the race footage was gripping, while the candid shots of drivers and mechanics behind the scenes were revealing.
