Damon's Destiny
Four days on, and attention was re-focusing on Silverstone for the British Grand Prix. Damon started his weekend under a cloud of anger, once more fending off suggestions in the press that he would be dropped next year in favour of Mansell and Coulthard. "Last Sunday I beat Nigel Mansell for pole position, the year before, I took pole from Alain Prost. I led the race and came closer to beating Schumacher than anyone's come to beating him all year other than Ayrton Senna and all I seem to have read in the paper's is that my bloody job's in jeopardy. It is not! I've never heard such a load of bollocks in all my life as I have this past week." To the gathered men of the press, he sounded more like his father than the Mr.Nice Guy they were accustomed to. "I am very, very pissed off. I don't get any credit for being polite and diplomatic so I am going to ditch that tack because it is not getting me anywhere." Friday's first qualifying session should have given Damon an opportunity to ease himself into the revised circuit layout ready for a run at pole.
Instead, having travelled about a mile, entering Becketts corner for the first time, the rear suspension wishbones simply jumped out of their fixings and Damon's run was over. Hill, astounded that it was possible for his team not to have checked his car properly, confronted Patrick Head as he arrived at the circuit. "He looked like he had just got off the No.29 bus from Clapham, with all his cases and everything". But however bitter Damon was with the press, he is never one to let it rub off on his pit crew and once they had recovered the car, Hill was out again, setting the fourth quickest. Saturday's final qualifying saw Damon in a very determined frame of mind. His first run put him on top only for it to be beaten by Berger by another 3/10ths. When the Ferrari nipped the pit lane barrier on it's second run, Berger's chance of pole vanished as Damon departed for his final run. "Nigel Mansell claimed that being on your home ground is worth a second a lap, and I don't think he's far wrong." said Hill later. Damon took 2/100ths off Berger's time to clinch pole but Schumacher was still to come. With all eyes on the Benetton, the German threw his car around Silverstone just 3/1000ths slower than Hill - a mere fraction of an inch in road terms.
But close as it was, 3/1000ths difference meant that Hill occupied pole position and Schumacher would have to settle alongside him on the grid. Damon had made two promises before the weekend started. One was to get pole, the other to win the race. One down one to go. "I was praying the time would stick, now I'm absolutely delighted. I didn't eat before doing that lap - that plate of pasta may have made all the difference. It's the first time I'm glad I missed lunch!" Race day arrived and the grid pulled away on the parade lap and this is where maybe with hindsight, Michael Schumacher would admit he made his first big mistake of the season by overtaking Hill. When they re-formed, David Coulthard's engine stalled and the race was delayed. The second Williams would have to start from the back, but the rule book says that Schumacher should also start from the back as passing on the parade lap is forbidden.
As they pulled off for their second parade, the German again dashed past Hill on the straight. Whether he was trying to put down an extra grip-grabbing layer of rubber to help his race getaway, or attempting to out-psyche Damon, neither approach worked. When the green light glowed, Hill made a start which would have been deemed respectable even with traction control. The Benetton though was not far behind and the two pulled out a significant gap from Berger, while the rest of the field was left behind to run their own race. Unknown to Schumacher, the stewards were conferring and issued their decision on lap 13 that the German would be given a five second time penalty. Whether his team misunderstood the ruling or otherwise, their driver did not call in for the penalty within the prescribed three laps.
Instead, both Damon and Schumacher made their first pit-stops, on laps 15 and 17 respectively. Hill's had been just that much slower and as he entered Copse, he found car No.5 in front of him. Damon had thought that an early stop would be a good tactic "except we lost the lead!" Berger's Ferrari was actually in front, but had not yet stopped, something he remedied on lap 22. But by now, the stewards were getting up quite a head of steam and black-flagged Schumacher for his failure to observe the stop-go time penalty. The German insists he did not see the flag, even though Damon saw it and the number five held alongside it. For three laps he ignored it until his pit-board told him to come in next lap. Some fast talking in the pit-lane let Schumacher take his penalty and rejoin the race, of course by now some twenty seconds or so aft of car zero.
Damon felt that his own car was not running so well on his second set of tyres, just as Schumacher complained of a gearbox glitch in his, this apart, their relative speeds were almost identical as they lapped 15 seconds apart. They both changed tyres and re-fuelled on lap 38, and Damon thought his car improved on his last set of rubber. The reliability of his Williams was 100% better than in the previous year and when it had expired while he was leading the race. Hill took the chequered flag almost 19 seconds ahead of Schumacher who may have considered himself lucky to get away without disqualification for ignoring the black-flag. His luck however was not permanent. Damon was ecstatic "I feel absolutely superb, I think this is the best day of my life. It is like a dream. I feel like I have completed the little hole that my father left in his record. It's funny, but I almost feel it was my destiny to win this race. Everything in my life has come together at this point. Call it big-headed, anything, but I knew I was going to win it. Everything went well from the moment I got up and I felt this was going to be my day. I had to keep telling myself, 'it won't be handed to you on a plate - you will have to drive the car', but I knew I would win."
In Graham's days, the British Grand Prix would have been followed by a party and a cricket match. Damon celebrated by leaping on stage with a guitar in hand and singing with Johnny Herbert such numbers as 'Twist and Shout' and other Beatles numbers. A far cry from the days when Damon had belonged to a punk rock group, called Sex Hitler and the Hormones! For cricket, substitute a celebrity golf tournament in aid of a charity - Damon had to be up early next day for that! Graham, if he was watching, would have approved.
At the end of July, Schumacher and Hill were among a number of drivers called to the FIA World Council in Paris to answer for alleged misdemeanours during the British Grand Prix. Damon's supposed crime was stopping to pick up a Union Jack on his slowing down lap. After proving that he had only slowed down, he was let off with a reprimand. "They asked me to bear in mind the regulations and I asked them to bear in mind a driver's pride in carrying his national flag on the slowing down lap". Conversely, Schumacher had the book thrown at him. His team was fined $500,000 for failing to order him to into the pits for the stop-go penalty and he was suspended for two races for ignoring the black flag. He was also disqualified from the British Grand Prix and stripped of those points already awarded for his second place. This closed the points gap between him and Damon from 33 to 27. More significantly, if Damon won the two races where Schumacher was absent, he could really be in with a realistic shout at the title.
Hill said: "I told Michael that I could never get any satisfaction from closing the points gap on him by way of him having points deducted. But nobody has ever said at the end of a World Championship year 'he won the title because...' They just remember who won it and that's all that matters." But the FIA were not yet finished - they had been examining the engine management software used by the winning cars at the San Marino GP and had found that the Benetton 'contained a facility capable of breaching the regulations'. The FIA were unable to prove whether the 'launch control' software had been used, but if it had, it would have given the car the capability of roaring starts devoid of wheelspin. Benetton were fined another $100,000 for not revealing the source code promptly. These revelations would all add pressure to Hill's closest rival, just days before the next race in Germany. Damon was able to celebrate his acquittal in the resplendent luxury of his new home. He and Georgie had just completed their move to the seven-bedroomed house, 'Torwood', near Ascot in Berkshire. It is comprised of the main wing of an imposing Edwardian property, situated close to the Royal Ascot Golf Course. The move from their terraced house in Wandsworth could be described as a little overdue and while the new abode reportedly cost in the region of £500,000 it is certainly more attune with a racing driver's glamorous image.
Still surrounded by packing cases, Damon returned to Silverstone for testing, driving an FW16 fitted with the new 10mm skid-block to conform with yet more, downforce-limiting regulations. His Williams topped the times with Schumacher second, 2/10ths slower. Hill's German GP should have been plain sailing with it's leading light banned for two races, but the inevitable commercial pressures, the understandable urge to drive in his home Grand Prix, and his supporters threat to burn Hockenheim down, made Michael Schumacher decide to appeal against his punishment, thereby allowing him to race at Hockenheim. As it turned out, the race was a litany of lost opportunities for Damon. Hill's frame of mind was not helped by a death threat telephoned to the Williams factory on the Friday. The caller warned that he would be shot if he looked like beating Michael Schumacher. The call could have been a hoax, but when a crowd of angry Germans attempted to turn the Williams motor home over, it was harder to doubt it's authenticity. For the duration of the weekend, Damon was shadowed by a police escort, even to the point of placing a guard outside his bedroom at night.
Attempting to put the threat to the back of his mind, Damon blew away the competition in the first session by a clear 6/10ths. The hotter conditions on Saturday worked against him on this very fast circuit and the extra horsepower of the two Ferrari's gained them the front row. Hill and Schumacher were to start side by side on the second row. The Williams had been modified dramatically since Silverstone and Hill was confident that his race set-up would give him the edge on the Benetton. Off the grid, Schumacher and Katayama made good starts, Hill dropping to fifth as they rounded the first corner, but in their mirrors, automotive carnage reigned. Eleven cars disappeared from the race on the start/finish straight. Hakkinen, with a reputation for sharing the same piece of road as other cars, ran over Coulthard's front, causing Blundell to brake and Barrichello to ram him. Another incident at the back of the grid disposed of the Minardis and others. Many felt the race should have been red-flagged but on it went.
Alesi's engine expired as they entered the forest, and Damon moved to fourth, then he lost an argument with Katayama as they negotiated the chicane. Damon admitted that he should have let the Tyrell through, but in his haste not to let the leaders escape, he botched it. "Perhaps if I'd been more patient, I could have won the race quite easily. I tried to race and then realised I wasn't going to make it." Now with a bent steering arm, he pitted, giving his team the unenviable task of having to repair two damaged Williams simultaneously. He rejoined in last place, some minutes down, with little hope of reaching the leaders. A long and lonely race was in prospect, with nobody to race and dejection as it looked like Schuey would score well again. But things got brighter as the laps were ticked off. The Benetton's engine failed on lap 20, which meant that the championship gap would not grow, but Damon was not in contention and could not take advantage. Car zero eventually caught and passed the two Simteks but when they both retired, just laps from the finish, Damon had to settle for eighth place - last.
"I lost a golden opportunity here today, but I'm not going to make excuses. I have to bear the responsibility and face up to what Frank Williams will say to me. Somehow, I don't think he'll be congratulating me." Not a good day for many - Williams failed to score, as did Benetton, their second driver, Jos Verstappen was involved in the first and much predicted refuelling fire. Nobody was seriously injured, but the fireball, caused by just a few litres of stray fuel was spectacular and potentially lethal. Berger and some of the lesser teams were the only beneficiaries of a dire weekend. During the following weeks, it became evident that the Benetton itself had been the root cause of the pitlane fire. It was revealed that someone in the team, authorised or not, had removed the filter on the fuel line, in order to increase the fuel-flow and thereby make the pitstop quicker. Together with the black-flag incident and the allegations that they may have employed an illegal launch control system, Benetton faced the prospect of being banned from the World Championship.
Damon was in a buoyant mood as the teams gathered for the Hungarian GP. He suggested that Benetton had passed their peak while his team were moving in the opposite direction, having made a 25% improvement on the FW16 since March. The Silverstone test at the beginning of August had only confirmed this to him. Hill and Coulthard were equal fastest while Schumacher ran fourth, over a second slower. Damon had won his first Grand Prix at the Hungaroring in '93 when he had been handed the pole position when Prost stalled. This year, with Schumacher on pole, betting on a similar occurrence would have made a bookmaker rub his hands together. The two title contenders were already in a race of their own - even before the green light. They had both qualified over a second faster than everyone else. Damon made the better start, but his side of the track was full of marbles (bits of rubber and debris thrown aside by the cars) which impeded his progress sufficiently for the Wunderkind to slope through at the first corner.
After a few laps, it became apparent to Hill that he was running a different pit-stop strategy to the Benetton as it began to saunter away from him. "I felt sure he was going for three stops, but I still felt I was in with a chance." When Schumacher stopped on lap 17, Damon saw his opportunity to pull out a lead but was thwarted by traffic. This circuit is notoriously difficult to pass, even when you are lapping twenty seconds faster than the car in front. As a consequence, Hill could barely even keep station with Schumacher as his own pit-stop approached. As he sat in the pits, he could hear the cars he had just laboured to overtake go past, readying themselves for Damon to overtake again. As he set about this task, Schumacher was making light work of the race and was nearly 40 seconds up the road. Even when the German pitted again, he re-entered the frail a good 15 seconds ahead. In a race that Hill really needed to win, he was once more trounced by Schumacher. The gap was 21 seconds at the flag but a culmination of pit-stop strategy, the Benetton nimbleness and Schumacher's undoubted ability to slice through traffic had combined to make Damon's title prospects a tad gloomier.
Copyright 1994 & 2000 Mike Baldock