Damon Hill's 1996 Australian GP

Posted on Monday 23 Mar 2009 and tagged with damon-hill, flashback, australia.

We're bringing you another new series this season in the shape of historical flashbacks. We've selected our favourite performance from past races (apart from the new one!) and will be talking to the driver who provided those memories.

For our first flashack, we went in search of 1996 Williams World Champion, Damon Hill, to get his take on the Melbourne race in his momentus Championship-winning year.

Damon Hill never finished outside the top three in the Drivers’ World Championship with Williams F1, but the top spot – that of World Champion – still eluded him as he entered the 1996 season. He headed to Melbourne for the season-opener keen to make amends. Here, exclusively for AT&T Williams, he recalls what happened.

“I turned up in Melbourne full of confidence. I was driving the FW18, which, for the first time in my F1 career, was a car that had been designed around my proportions. I have large feet and Adrian [Newey, chief designer] had done a fantastic job accommodating them; the car fitted me like a glove.

“In winter testing the FW18 had proved itself to be very quick and it was pretty clear that we were going to be Championship contenders. I also knew that my closest challenger for the world title was most likely going to be my team-mate, Jacques Villeneuve, who was new to F1. He’d done a lot of testing during the winter, so I expected him to be on the pace from the first race.

“Jacques pipped me to pole position, which he got very excited about, as did the media, but I wasn’t at all demoralised. He did a good lap, but I was alongside him on the front row and I was looking at the long-term picture. I had a lot of experience in F1 and I wasn’t about to be derailed by Jacques after one qualifying session.

“The race had to be stopped after Martin Brundle’s crash into Turn 3 on the opening lap. At the re-start Jacques took the lead, but he went off at the first corner and was lucky to stay ahead. He was a pretty ragged driver at the best of times and he started to lose oil immediately after the incident, which was to cost him later in the race.

“I stuck with him during the early laps, biding my time and getting covered in oil. My race pace was better than his, but I didn’t try that hard to overtake as I knew he was very keen to win his first F1 race and I didn’t want to risk a collision. Jacques’ lack of oil became critical late in the race and on lap 52 I overtook him after he’d been advised by the team to slow down. It wasn’t an entirely satisfying victory for me, but it was an important win nonetheless because I was entirely focused on winning the Championship.”

Listen to Damon talk more about the 1996 Australian GP in the Australian GP podcast, out on the Tuesday after the race and live here!