Damon Hill

Damon Hill

Damon Graham Devereux Hill, OBE is a British former racing driver. He is the son of Formula One world champion Graham Hill. Hill is one of only two sons of a world champion to also win the title. He started racing on motorbikes in 1981, and after minor success moved on to single-seater racing cars.

About Damon Hill in brief

Summary Damon HillDamon Graham Devereux Hill, OBE is a British former racing driver. He is the son of Formula One world champion Graham Hill. Hill is one of only two sons of a world champion to also win the title. He started racing on motorbikes in 1981, and after minor success moved on to single-seater racing cars. Hill became a test driver for the Formula One title-winning Williams team in 1992. He was promoted to the Williams race team the following year after Riccardo Patrese’s departure and took the first of his 22 victories at the 1993 Hungarian Grand Prix. During the mid-1990s, Hill was Michael Schumacher’s main rival for the F1 Drivers’ Championship. Hill retired from racing after the 1999 season. He has since launched several businesses and has made appearances playing the guitar with celebrity bands. In 2006, he became president of the British Racing Drivers’ Club, succeeding Sir Jackie Stewart. He presided over the securing of a 17-year contract for Silverstone to hold Formula One races, which enabled the circuit to see extensive renovation work. Hill and his wife Susan have four children: Oliver, Joshua, Tabitha and Rosie. Oliver was born with Down syndrome and Hill and Georgie are both patrons of the Down’s Syndrome Association. Joshua started racing in 2008, competing in the British Formula Renault Championship in 2011. Joshua retired from motor racing in 2013. Hill says: ‘When I took the decision that I wasn’t going to stop doing that sort of thing’s not just competing, it’s not competing with my father.

It’s competing with the world’ He is married to Susan George and they have four kids: Oliver, Joshua, Tabita andRosie. Hill also became the first patron of St. Joseph’s Specialist School and College, a school for children with severe learning disabilities and autism in Cranleigh, Surrey, in 2008. Hill’s father Graham Hill was a racing driver in the international Formula One series. He won the world Drivers’ Championship in 1962 and 1968 and became a well-known personality in the United Kingdom. His mother Bette was a former rower and medalist at the European Rowing Championships. By 1975 the family lived in a 25-room country mansion in Hertfordshire and Damon attended the independent The Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School. Although he won a 350 cc clubman’s championship at the Brands Hatch circuit, his racing budget came from working as a building labourer and he didn’t really look destined for great things. He also worked as a dispatch rider for Special Delivery, a London motorcycle dispatch company and was provided TZ350 racing bikes by them. Hill used the same simple, easily identifiable helmet design as his father: eight white oar blades arranged vertically around the upper surface of a dark blue helmet. The device and colours represent the London Rowing Club for which Graham Hill rowed in the early 1950s.