Damon Hill is coming to the Festival of Speed

His title triumph will be at the centre of the festivities on Saturday of the Festival of Speed, when Hill will be invited up onto the balcony of Goodwood House on Saturday 11^th July to address the crowd and reminisce on his career. 

The son of two-time World Champion Graham Hill, Damon was 15 years old when his father died in a plane crash. From that moment on he was destined to one day follow in Graham’s footsteps.

When he retired from racing after 115 Grand Prix starts he had amassed 22 victories, 42 podium finishes and 20 pole positions, but his journey to the title was far from straightforward.

Hill initially turned away from car racing and embraced his true love of motorcycles, funding his early career by working several jobs as a labourer and a dispatch rider in London. 

After a gentle nudge from his mother, who was concerned by the dangers of bike racing, Hill’s path did eventually lead him to race on four wheels after he joined the Winfield Racing School in 1983. 

He proved his capabilities in a car and decided that, despite his preference to two-wheeled racing, the career prospects were better in the car world. By 1984, Hill had begun slowly climbing the motorsport ladder. 

But, at the age of 24, Hill was already considered too old by many. Ken Tyrrell famously said to him during a chance meeting that he would never make it to F1; Ayrton Senna, just six months older than Hill, was already announcing himself as a superstar on the world stage. 

He showcased a modicum of talent during three full seasons of British Formula 3, but after finishing second at the 1988 Macau Grand Prix, his career came to a near halt as his flow of sponsorship ran dry. 

Hill came to a crossroads in his life. Now married with a young son, a homeowner who needed to support his family, he was left with a decision to make: call it day and find a ‘proper’ job, or make one last push to succeed as a racing driver. 

He chose the latter. In 1989, Hill drove anything he could get his hands on — MG Metros, Saab 900s, Ford Escorts, he entered a round of the British Touring Car Championship driving a Ford Sierra RS500, and raced at Le Mans in a Porsche 962 run by Richard Lloyd Racing. 

But most telling was an opportunity he took to drive a Footwork Formula 3000 car, a seat he took from Ukyo Katayama for the second half of that 1989 season. His prime motivation was the fact it was a paid drive, but it did give him an opportunity to get himself back into a single-seater racing car in a series that, at that time, acted as the gateway to F1. 

He earned a more competitive drive for 1990, and gradually the snowball started rolling.  While Hill’s results on paper were underwhelming, his performances caught the attention of Williams and he was offered a test with the team, earning a call up to become an F1 test driver for 1991. 

But that was far from the end of the road for Hill, who now needed to try and convince the Williams hierarchy, led by Frank Williams and Patrick Head, that he was worthy of filling one of the team’s two race seats. That was no mean feat when Nigel Mansell was firmly positioned as the Williams flag bearer with his iconic ‘Red Five.’ 

Instead of sitting idly and accepting his role as a test driver, however, Hill sought to continue developing his CV and worked a move to take the seat at Brabham vacated by Giovanna Amati. By 1992, the Brabham team was barely recognisable from the outfit that claimed numerous World Titles a decade earlier.  

With no money, it was inevitable the team would eventually succumb, but Hill showed his tenacity by climbing into the car and seeing what he could do. He managed to drag the car onto the grid at the sixth time of asking, and eventually completed Brabham’s final Grand Prix in Hungary before the team did finally fold. 

It was quite the year for Hill, as he navigated his role of testing one of the most dominant F1 cars of all time while battling away with one of the slowest. It turned out to be invaluable experience, because discontent was brewing at Williams and Hill was in prime position to capitalise. 

Alain Prost was signed to drive in 1993 and Mansell, fresh off becoming the World Champion, left the team. Ricardo Patrese, who had been the team’s second driver, had already signed a deal with Benetton for ‘93, so Williams were suddenly left with a gap to fill. Hill, at the age of 32, was given the chance. 

Faced with quite the baptism of fire, Hill got straight to work as an F1 driver for the reigning Constructors’ Champions, with a three-time World Champion in Prost as his team-mate. 

It was never likely to be easy, and Hill was never expected to be fighting for the title, but his performances in the face of those challenges were to be commended. Ten podium finishes including three Grand Prix victories in Hungary, Belgium and Italy marked a remarkable first full season in F1 and secured his future with the team for 1994. 

Prost, having won his fourth World Championship, retired from racing and was replaced by none other than Ayrton Senna, another three-time Champion and legend of the sport — and another monumental benchmark for Hill to compare himself against. 

That 1994 season remains one of the darkest in F1 history, and with Senna’s death at Imola Hill was faced with another incomprehensible challenge. The loss of Williams’ star driver threatened to tear the team apart but Hill, despite his relative inexperience, worked hard to pull everyone together and focus on the job in hand. He had a new goal, and that was to beat Benetton’s Michael Schumacher to the World Championship. 

It was a rivalry that defined an era, and Hill, against all the odds, came within a whisker of victory. His performance at the rain-soaked Japanese Grand Prix was one of defiance and pure determination to beat the German on aggregate and take the title race to the final round in Adelaide. 

What happened there will be forever remembered as one of sport’s most controversial moments, as Hill lost out on the Championship after an infamous collision with Schumacher. 

After coming so close in 1994, Hill endured a challenging and error-strewn season in ‘95, which left his position at Williams under scrutiny. Frank Williams was already working on a future deal to bring BMW into the team as engine supplier, and as part of that he was considering introducing some new blood to his driver line-up. 

Hill raced his entire career at Williams under a series of one-year contracts, and that was no different in 1996. This time however, he finally felt he had a car that had been built for him. 

Adrian Newey had drawn up one of his typically remarkable cars, and the Williams FW18 was by far and away the class of the field. Schumacher had made an ambitious and long-sighted move to the struggling Ferrari team, and Hill found himself with the clearest path to the World Championship he would ever have. 

His only obstacle was a young and exciting new team-mate in Jacques Villeneuve, but Hill proved throughout the season that he had the experience and the speed to win. 

His eight victories in 1996 amounted to one of the more successful Championship campaigns in F1 history, and he saw off the challenge of Villeneuve to finally claim the title at the final round at Suzuka. 

It was an incredibly emotional moment for everyone involved in motorsport. Hill had become the people’s Champion, and Murray Walker’s words in the moment reflected the feelings of every British fan. 

Memories of that incredible season will come flooding back when Hill arrives at the 2026 Goodwood Festival of Speed 30 years on. He’ll be in attendance across all four days of the event, and you’ll be able to see him up on the balcony on Saturday 11^th July to join in the celebrations. 

He’ll also be in action on the Hill throughout the event, and we’ll have more details on exactly what he’ll be driving in the coming weeks. 

Tickets for the Festival of Speed are now on sale. Saturday and four-day passes are now limited and Friday tickets are selling fast. If you’re not already part of the GRRC, joining the Fellowship means you can save ten per cent on your 2026 tickets and grandstand passes, as well as enjoy a whole host of other on-event perks.

Images courtesy of Getty Images.