    
  1962 Germany 1962 Holland 1962 Italy 1962 South Africa 1963 Monaco 1963 United States 1964 Monaco 1964 United States 1965 Monaco 1965 United States 1968 Spain 1968 Mexico 1968 Monaco 1969 Monaco   
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   The inclusion of Graham Hill on my list of the ten greatest drivers
is probably the most controversial. It is easy to underestimate someone who has come from
so humble a beginning. Hill came late to motor racing, in fact he had not even driven a
car until he was 24. His early years marked by a profound lack of money and one of the
first passenger cars that Hill owned was a 1929 Austin. The car was a wreck which is just
about what you would expect for 70 dollars. Soon loosing its brakes Hill would have to
scrub the car's tires against the curb in order to stop. He would later remark that all
budding race car drivers should own such a car. "The chief qualities of a racing
driver are concentration, determination and anticipation", he said "A
1929 Austin without brakes develops all three - anticipation rather more than the first
two, perhaps."
Graham Hill joined Smiths, the instrument makers at the age of 16. He served a five-year apprenticeship and was called into the Navy at the age of 21. Two years later he returned to Smiths. During this time he had taken up rowing and met his future wife Bette. One day he saw an advertisement in a magazine for a new racing school which said that anyone interested could drive a racing car at Brands Hatch for five shillings a lap. Hill went down and raced four laps and as he would later remark "everything changed." The school was called the Universal Motor Racing Club where he suggested to the owner that he was willing to exchange his labor as a mechanic in exchange for letting him drive one of the race cars. Unfortunately he was taken advantage of and the owner soon left without Hill ever getting close to driving a race car. Hill would not give up on his dream and soon entered into a similar arrangement with another person he had only just met. This time he actually did race one of the cars and soon this new school, taking advantage of Hill's limited success, had its first group of students. Hill being the veteran of a handful of races and besides the owner the only other employee, would be their instructor!
This was his fifth win on
this difficult circuit; a record that was not surpassed until Ayrton
Senna captured his sixth victory in 1993. At Watkins
Glen he was injured in a terrible accident that saw him confined to a wheelchair.
After he recovered from his injuries he continued racing but without any further success,
eventually starting his own team. In 1975 Graham Hill was killed when the plane he was
piloting went down after getting lost in the fog. The world would never again see the
famous helmet with the rowing stripes. But in 1993 his son Damon Hill resurrected that
famous icon in Formula 1. |
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Hill was now ready for bigger and better
opportunities and at one race he hitched a ride back to London with one of the other
entrants, a man by the name of Colin Chapman. He started at Lotus working for Colin
Chapman as a mechanic and was paid one pound a day. Unable to convince Chapman for a
chance to race one of his cars he actually quit Lotus temporarily before finally
convincing Chapman. After much cajoling he was elevated to full-time driving and in 1958
he made his debut in Formula 1. That could only happen today if he had a couple extra
million in his back pocket! After limited success and too many mechanical failures for his
tastes, Hill left for BRM in 1960. In 1962 He won his first race at 
