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Growing up as child, one of my favourite cartoon characters was Dastardly of the Dastardly and Muttly cartoon. When I first saw a picture of Graham Hill, I wondered whether the maker of Dastardly (who has an uncanny resemblance to Hill) was inspired by the Brit. Then I grew up a bit more and learned about the legend that was Graham Hill, and ever since that day, I now find him resembling Don Corleone in the Godfather (portrayed by Marlyn Brando). His effect on the sport is certainly no less than Brando’s in the Godfather series.
20th November 1968: British motor-racing driver Graham Hill (1929 – 1975) with the world racing driver’s championship trophy.
Born in Hampstead, London Hill in 1929, he served in the Royal Navy and got his driving license at the age of twenty four, by which time he had quit the navy and was intrigued and wooed by the world of motorsport and racing. It was during this time that he met Colin Chapman and started working for his team Lotus, as a mechanic. Hill was a persuasive man and he soon found himself driving for the team in a car he designed himself. Hill officially debuted in the 1958 Monaco GP and was unlucky not to finish fourth after a loose screw had his front tyre coming out of the car during the race.
“A wreck. A budding racing driver should own such a car, as it teaches delicacy, poise and anticipation, mostly the latter I think!” - Hill describing his first car.
He stayed with the Lotus team until 1960 and then left to sign up with BRM. Hill stated that he had grown tired of the inconsistency the car at Lotus offered and wanted to work with a better team. His first two seasons at BRM were equally unsuccessful as he finished a disappointing 15th and 16th in the 1961 and ’62 season respectively.
1963 was a breakthrough year in the Brit’s Formula One career, having finally found a competitive car. Hill was in blistering form right from the beginning of the season and stacked up wins at the Dutch, German and Italian GP. Going into the final race of the season in South Africa, he was neck-to-neck with Jim Clarke in the driver’s standings. Luckily for Hill, Jim’s Lotus could not finish the race and Hill, powered by his new V8 engine, snatched both victory and the title that year, winning his first Formula one crown in the process.
“He is the archetype of the driver of the future… precise, smooth, knowing. Graham is just as smooth as he looks.” - Stirling Moss in 1962
Hill remained competitive for the next few seasons but unluckily finished second three years in a row from 1963 to ’65, twice to Jim Clarke and once to John Surtees. He moved to Indianapolis 500 during the so called “British Invasion’ of the race and was on hand to capitalise on Sir Jackie Stewart’s car failures to land the title in 1966. Hill did not have a very successful year with the BRM team in Formula One that year, finishing a disappointing fifth in the standings. And when Lotus came calling for the second time, he found himself agreeing, having looked at the promising Lotus 49-Cosworth and being impressed by it’s speed. He took the seat and raced alongside Jim Clarke for the 1967 season.
Graham Hill, Lotus-Cosworth 49C, Monaco, Monte Carlo, 10 May 1970.
Tragedy struck in the 1968 season when team-mate Jim Clarke, who had started the season well, died during a crash at Hockenheim, Germany. The team was devastated by his death and owner Colin Chapman could not come to grips with the blow. But Hill stepped up when it was most required and won the Spanish GP to lift the team’s spirits and was challenged to the end by Jackie Stewart’s Matra and Danny Hulme’s Mclaren, before finally winning the title at the season finale Mexican GP. The team had turned around a corner but as it turned out, it was to be Hill’s last F1 title and his career soon started spiralling downwards.
The Champion was outpaced by fellow team-mate Jochen Rindt in the 1969 season and finished a disappointing seventh, only managing to win a solitary race that season, although a crash at the US Grand Prix that year broke both his feet and interrupted his F1 career for a while. He returned to the team for the 1970 season, determined to fight back but the fragile and unreliable Lotus did not help his cause and he could not manage a single podium the entire season. He left Lotus for Brabham and had to experience very disappointing times, continuously racing in less-than-competitive cars, Hill was now no more a force to reckon with but his love for the sport had him racing till the 1975 season. It was in this season at the Monaco GP, where he failed to even qualify in his own car that Hill realised that finally it was time to move on.
Hill had by now started his own car-company and was preparing to launch his protégée, British Tony Brise into Formula One when he suffered a fatal air-crash on 29 November 1975. Returning after a successful car-testing at Circuit Paul Ricard in France, the plane suffered a crash amid intensely foggy conditions near Arkley Golf Course in North London, all six members of the flight were killed including Hill and Brise.
It is difficult to describe Hill with any one adjective in particular. He was witty, charming, meticulous, hard-working and focussed. Hill never possessed the driving talents of Jochen Rindt or Ayrton Senna nor was he as tactically astute as Alain Prost. But his sheer love for the sport and his go-give-it-all attitude was what made him popular among his contemporaries. Such was his love for the sport that his wife had to fund their marriage as he had used up all his cash for racing and during the early part of his career, he often slept on hay-stacks besides the tracks on the night before the race because he had no money left for lodging.
Graham Hill, France, Dijon-Prenois, 7 July 1974.
Graham Hill, to date, is the only driver to have won the Triple Crown of motor-racing which includes the 24 hours Le Mans race (won in 1972), The Monaco Grand Prix ( won a then record five times during his career) and the Indianapolis 500 (won in 1966) and constitutes the only father-son combination in the history of Formula One who have won the title during their career (his son Damon won it in 1996). And with his grandson Josh Hill also showing promising talent as a young driver already, we might see the Hill lineage enthrall us with their driving for many years to come.
“I am an artist. The track is my canvas, and the car is my brush.” – Graham Hill
