Damon Hill is, of course, the son of Graham Hill, who won the Formula One World Drivers’ Championship in 1962 and 1968. Indeed, Hill Jr. himself was Formula One World Champion in 1996 and has the distinction of being one of just a handful of sportspeople to be voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year more than once. In fact, at the time of his second award – which coincided with his one and only drivers’ championship in 1996 – he was just the third, after boxer Sir Henry Cooper (1967, 1970) and fellow racing driver Nigel Mansell (1986, 1992).
On that second occasion, Hill beat rower Steve Redgrave and jockey Lanfranco ‘Frankie’ Dettori into second and third place, respectively, in the public voter. Having accepted the trophy from the 1995 winner, triple jumper Jonathan Edwards, he said, “This really has made my year for me. I feel enormously proud to win this award, to stand here amongst the cream of our country’s sportsmen. It is a humbling experience.”
Hill competed in Formula One between 1992 and 1999, but the 1996 season was his most successful. He won eight of the 16 Grand Prix contested during the season and eventually topped the drivers’ table 19 points ahead of his nearest rival, Williams-Renault teammate Jacques Villeneuve.
Hill had previously finished runner-up in the Formula One World Drivers’ Championship in 1994 and 1995, behind Michael Schumacher on both occasions and, controversially, by just a single point in 1994. Schumacher was widely blamed, including by Hill himself, for causing a collision between the two during the final race of the season, the Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, forcing the retirement of both drivers and, effectively, handing the title to the German.
At the end of a tragic Formula One season, which saw the deaths of rookie Roland Ratzenberger and Williams-Renault teammate Ayrton Senna during the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, being voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year 1994 may have provided scant consolation for Hill. That he was, though, beating athletes Sally Gunnell and Colin Jackson in the public vote.