Damon Hill interview: Red Bull just cannot accept criticism

Telegraph

27-02-2025

'Damon Hill's a s--- driver. There you go, I've given you your headline,' Formula One's 1996 world champion chuckles as he sets off in search of his ball after hooking it off the third tee on a glorious winter's day at Hankley Common.
The beautiful heathland course – 30th in Golf Monthly 's ranking of the top courses in Great Britain and Ireland – is Hill's local manor. He has been a member here 'for the last 10 years or so', having settled in this neck of the Surrey commuter belt following his return from Ireland in 2000, at the end of his driving career.
Hill is a big golf nut. He has his grandfather Norman, his father's father, to thank for that.
'Mill Hill will correct me, but I think my grandfather was captain of Mill Hill Golf Club at one time,' he says of his golfing pedigree. 'He was certainly a member. I've got a picture of him somewhere wearing a tweed jacket, buttoned up, at the top of his backswing, playing with a fabulous old wooden-shafted thing. This would have been about 1920.'
Hill's father Graham, the three-time F1 world champion, about whom a new documentary, simply titled Hill, premieres at the Glasgow Film Festival on Thursday, was also a fan of the game.
'Dad always claimed he took it up after he broke his legs [at the 1969 United States Grand Prix],' Hills says. 'But he must have played before that because I remember going to a course in New Zealand once, when my son Josh was racing there, in Invercargill or somewhere, and there was a picture of dad on the wall. All the F1 drivers were there. It was taken in the late 60s.
'But he wasn't a serious golfer. I mean, he played golf with Sean Connery and Eric Sykes and Stanley Baker and people like that. They used to go off on jollies. There's a picture of them in Morocco [at Tunis Golf Club] all with fez's on. Not on the course. In the bar.'
Hill's own love affair with golf began when the family moved from Hampstead to Hertfordshire when he was a boy. 'We used to play at Porters Park in Radlet,' he recalls. 'Dad was a member there, so I was a junior member. Occasionally we'd play nine holes together. Those memories are very special.'
Hill was just 15 when his father died after the Piper Aztec light aircraft he was piloting crashed on approach to Elstree Airfield in November 1975, killing himself and the five other passengers on board.
'It was rare to get that time alone with dad,' he adds of those days at Porters Park. 'I remember someone saying to him 'Oh, your boy's got a lovely swing.' And I thought, 'Well, that's it. I'm a golfing God.' And of course, that was fatal. I never took any lessons. I thought, 'I don't need to.' After 40 years of slicing it right, I've now developed a hook…'
Hill is being modest. He actually plays off a very respectable 13.6 – and as I'm about to find out, he is a bandit off that figure. But it is fair to say he may have a bit more time to work on his swing this year, having parted ways with Sky Sports F1 at the end of last season.
After 13 years together, it is going to feel strange for British F1 fans not having him on their screens this season. Not all of them are pleased about it, not least because of the lingering suspicion that his departure may have had something to do with his well-documented criticism of Red Bull's world champion Max Verstappen late last year.
Hill felt the Dutch driver went too far with some of his racing in Austin and Mexico as last season's championship fight with Lando Norris came to a head – and said so on a Sky Sports F1 podcast (listen to in full below), suggesting it was not in Verstappen's makeup to race 'fairly' and jokingly likening the Red Bull to Dick Dastardly of Wacky Races fame.
It is fair to say Verstappen and father Jos were not best pleased, complaining of 'biased people' within the paddock.
Does Hill feel the farrago had a hand in Sky Sports' decision not to retain him? 'I would like to think not,' he says. 'I hope not. I think I felt like the end was coming anyway, because I was kind of pushed back all last year. I was doing the less attractive races. And they've got younger, fresher names. They've got Jenson [Button], they've got Nico [Rosberg]. And that's fair enough. I completely get it. They're closer to the front line than I am. And it's TV. There's got to be a bit of eye-candy factor to it.'
Hill laughs again. With his trademark goatee, some of his fans might suggest he is a bit of a silver fox himself. Either way, he stresses he does not harbour any grudges, praising Sky for being 'brilliant at what they do' and paying tribute to all of his erstwhile colleagues, in particular Martin Brundle whom he describes as 'an absolute genius'. He jokes that by contrast he has essentially 'winged it for the last 13 years'.
But Hill is clearly hurt by some of what went on, in particular the suggestion that he was in any way biased. He claims that, on the contrary, Sky bent over backwards not to be biased, and suggests that Red Bull took advantage of that.
'Well, this is where we touch on something… so Red Bull fight their corner very forcefully,' he says. 'And they don't like criticism of Max. And they didn't like, particularly, some of the things that were said. On the whole they've always taken the view that Sky are British-centric and biased, which is really unfair I think. Actually I think there is a desire [the other way]. I don't think Sky want to be accused of being biased at all. I think they want to be a fair broadcaster of the sport – credit where credit's due and all that. They also do not want to be denied access to a very important figure in this sport. And I think Red Bull know that, and they apply pressure if they need to.'
Hill shakes his head. 'But I'm not anti-Max. This is the point. I think Max is brilliant. I like him. I mean what's not to like? He's sensational. But when I felt he overstepped the mark, I said so. And I think Red Bull have a responsibility, their team management has a responsibility, to the sport you know? If their driver goes over the limit on occasion, they have a responsibility to say 'You can't do that.' And they don't. That's always been my issue with them. That they have almost given Max carte blanche and protected their driver from not sticking to the code, if you like.'
Hill is coming in off his long run now. 'I'll give you an example,' he says. '[Last year] Max correctly interpreted to his advantage the rule about overtaking and being ahead at the apex on the inside. There's nothing in the rules that says you can't do that. And it's exciting to see people dive down the inside. Except that no other driver does it. And if someone was to do it to him, he'd cry like a baby. And that's one of my issues with them. Red Bull simply can't accept that. No, it really is slightly disappointing, to say the least, that they like to be thought of as the hard kids on the block, but when something doesn't go their way, they cry about it.
'As I say, I like Max. What I don't like is jingoism. And I don't like the fact that it became a 'You're against us because we're not British' and all that nonsense, which was used as a way of pressuring us. It's utterly unfair to suggest that there is any kind of anti-Dutch thing going on. What can you do? I thought I was there to express my opinion.'
Sky is going to miss this sort of forthright honesty from its coverage this season. But then, that has always been the thing about Hill. He may have come across as the mild-mannered son of a champion who would not say boo to a Benetton, but he has a steely core.
He certainly offers an interesting perspective on all manner of things. And as we make our way around Hankley Common, playing a three-ball match with another friend of his (who plays off one, making me – a lapsed 18-handicapper – comfortably the worst player) we discuss a variety of topics, from the state of F1 to Donald Trump's presidency.
Hill wonders aloud whether the latter might be a threat to the former, despite F1's booming credentials in the States. 'Remember F1 is not a domestic formula,' he points out. 'It's owned by an American company, but it's not a domestic product. IndyCar is. And at a time when domestic things have a lot of support…you know, Make American Racing Great Again. I can hear it.'
He tells me about the local area. Hankley Common Golf Club, which opened in 1897, lies adjacent to military land and chinook helicopters buzz about us on training exercises as we play. It is easy to see why it has been used extensively for TV and Hollywood films, from the site of James Bond's ancestral Scottish mansion in Skyfall to BBC true crime drama, Landscapers, starring Olivia Colman.
Every so often, he berates himself if he hits a bad shot. 'Hill, you idiot.' It's like listening to Murray Walker commentating on one of his races.
So what is he going to do this year? Could he retire and play golf? 'No I'm not ready for that,' he says. 'I need to work.'
So what then? 'I don't know. I've got some offers. So I'm doing Network 10 [the Australian broadcaster] at the season opener in Melbourne. But I don't really want to traipse around the world just standing around in the paddock. It's got to be something that uses your bonce, you know? I can't just stand there and wait for a question to be asked. It doesn't do it for me. I always felt like I had a kind of ill-fitting suit on when I was with Sky. I didn't feel I got to a place where I could express everything I wanted to, like I'm doing in this interview now, because there isn't the time. I mean, they're brilliant at it. But there are much better people than me at it. I only did it as a temporary job and I ended up doing it for 12-13, years!'
Could he work with a team perhaps? 'I would love that,' he confesses. 'I'm a natural competitor and I'd love to be involved again in trying to help someone or something be competitive. That's what I understand really.'
'Schumacher just made mincemeat of me'
A driver mentor role is a possibility. Hill admits he watched Norris and George Russell's attempts to take on Verstappen last season through his fingers at some points, remembering similar mistakes he made when taking on Michael Schumacher 30 years ago.
'I got embroiled in tit-for-tats with Michael and he just made mincemeat of me,' he recalls. 'Not only did he beat me on track, he beat me off it, too, which was humiliating. So my advice would be, if there's not a fight, don't go and find one. And if you do, be prepared. Some people are better equipped for that world than others. Guys like Fernando [Alonso], and Max as well, if you want to go into battle with those guys, first of all, you better beat them on track. And secondly, you better be ready for the second punch, because it's coming.'
We are approaching the final holes now. Having trailed on the front nine, Hill comes good down the stretch, much as he did in his career, winning on the 17th. We retire to the clubhouse for tea and scones.
He says he is excited about the upcoming season; the potential for a four-way battle for the title, Norris and Russell potentially in the mix, Lewis Hamilton in a Ferrari.
'We're witnessing the last chapter,' he says of Hamilton's chances. 'And he really doesn't have anything else to prove. But let's say there's a sliver of a chance he is winning an eighth world title in a Ferrari… that would be like one of those stories that sport every now and then throws up.. Tiger Woods winning that Masters in 2019 on one leg, or Niki Lauda returning from near death. It would be right up there. Can it happen? I don't think it's totally impossible.'
Listening to him, it is clear he still loves the sport, even if it is not the same one he grew up watching when his dad was racing, or even when he was. 'Listen, it wasn't all brilliant back then,' he says. 'I used to sit in the grandstands, watch Jackie Stewart go past, and about a minute later someone else would go past. And that would go on for two hours. And it wasn't televised. But from an aesthetic point of view, it was fabulous.
'Most of all it was authentic. Whatever you said about the drivers back then, maybe they were playboys, maybe they lived a debauched life away from the track, they got in their cars and risked their lives. So there was a degree of respect for that. And I think, you know, how do you retain that? F1 needs to be careful not to go too far down the entertainment route. It's crept into the radio communication a little bit. Things are said just for effect, because they know it's going to be reported. Because it's part of the show. Authenticity is so important.
'But yes, I would say I enjoy the sport more now than I have for a long time. The last few years have been great. The driving is of an incredible standard. It's still got a magic to it. It's still the circus my dad ran away to join, and me maybe.' Hill smiles and shrugs. 'I've tried living without it, and it just seems to find you again. It's been in my life since I was born.'