Three decades after the world championship-deciding collision with Michael Schumacher, Damon Hill visits the scene of the 1994 Formula 1 final race in Adelaide
“This is the spot. This is the corner where it all happened.” This is what Damon Hill says as he stands for the first time in 30 years at the place where he collided with Michael Schumacher in the 1994 Formula 1 final race and lost the World Championship title fight.
Hill has traveled to Adelaide in Australia for a report by the English-language Formula 1 broadcaster Sky and is on foot as he approaches the corner of Flinders Street and Hutt Street, where the sixth corner of the Adelaide Street Circuit was located three decades ago.
A few meters earlier, Schumacher had gone off the track in the 1994 Benetton and hit the wall at the exit of Turn 5, had manoeuvred his damaged car back onto the track – and Hill in the Williams smelled the chance to pass his world championship rival. Both were in the hunt for their first title, and whoever finished in the points ahead of the other would be world champion.
Hill re-enacts the accident with Schumacher
30 years later, Hill films himself at turn 6 and says to the camera: “I’m replaying the scene, I’m on the inside – and bam!”
The collision causes Schumacher’s car to rise up, fly off and immediately land in the run-off zone. Hill is initially able to continue, but his car has also suffered: The left front suspension is damaged, as the team discovers during the emergency stop in the pits. Williams did not send Hill back out onto the track. This decides the championship – in favor of Schumacher, who is ahead on points.
Or as Hill put it in 2024: “Everything [is] over. But that’s history. It’s in the archives now.” That’s what the former Formula 1 driver says in his short video on Instagram
The collision is making waves around the world
In the post text, however, Hill goes into more detail and talks about one of the “most controversial incidents in Formula 1” and how the scene between him and Schumacher caused “worldwide outrage” because some observers accuse Schumacher of intentionality
“So what can we learn from this? Is one man’s tragedy another man’s victory? Or is there something like an innate sense of right and wrong that we ignore? “
Hill: “Glad this season was over “
“Whatever: [The incident] was perhaps a predictable end to a terrible and tragic season,” says Hill. “Most of us at Williams were glad the season was over.”
After all, Williams had experienced something terrible just a few months earlier: team newcomer Ayrton Senna had been killed in an accident at the third Formula 1 race of the season in Imola, suddenly making Hill the new number one.
Two years after the events of Adelaide, however, Hill’s moment came: the son of the world champion became Formula 1 world champion himself in 1996, for Williams. After the 1999 season, Hill ended his Grand Prix career with 22 victories from 115 races. Today, he works as a TV pundit for British television and traveled to Australia in this role in 2024.