Damon Hill [Arrows] - Hungarian Grand Prix 1997.

[Fortitude]

The race Damon Hill almost made history! | 1997 Hungarian GP ��️ | F1 Watchalong

Damon Hill, Johnny Herbert, David Croft and Ted Kravitz look back at the race in which Damon came close to winning for Arrows, an unfancied midfield team that have never won a GP.

In a race Damon overtook great rival Michael Schumacher in the opening laps for the lead and was cruising to victory, until a failure of a washer – which reputedly cost about 50p – broke and he was overtaken on the final lap by Williams’ Jacques Villeneuve and finished second.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV21oHRV0RI

[gm99]

Nowadays, Villeneuve would probably be punished for not obeying track limits and forced to give the position back to Hill

[Fortitude]

Nowadays, Villeneuve would probably be punished for not obeying track limits and forced to give the position back to Hill

Good point and well done you, for mentioning that piece of 'historical irony'!

[zako85]

This race proved that Damon Hill was a real deal. He also had some good races with Jordan.

[Fortitude]

This race proved that Damon Hill was a real deal. He also had some good races with Jordan.

Certainly Damon Hill was the real deal. One of the best documentaries about Williams GP at the time;

1993 Williams The Champions - Behind the scenes at Williams preparing for 1993

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hCe-EFbdMc

Great watch and stirring music at the start. During the programme, you will hear Frank Williams speaking to Alain Prost about the second driver, mentioning that his engineers have been praising Damon Hill. Those race engineers had been impressed about Damon Hill, as test driver for the team in 1991 and 1992.

Coming from motorbikes, it is my belief that Damon Hills smooth and steady riding on a motorbike, became his driving style for an F1 car and that allowed him to assess the Williams development cars extremely well during the testing. When you watch the programme, you can see Damon Hills contribution to that effort.

Damon Hill was extremely good at setting the car up and that Arrows F1 car in Hungary 1997, nearly won.

[Fortitude]

A sit down with Damon Hill to talk Silverstone, the '21 season and his early memories of the track

Damon talks his time at Silverstone, the family connection, what it feels like to stand on the podium and of course, his famous and wonderful connection with Murray Walker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzlVJtsi2MU

[Fortitude]

Barnard remembers Hill’s ’97 Hungary heartache: ‘We could’ve won that race’.
Hill did manage the nurse the car home as Villeneuve blasted past on the last lap, celebrating his runners-up spot gamely on the rostrum.
AUGUST 10TH 2022
AUTHOR James Elson
Motor Sport

Walkinshaw had been team manager at Ligier, later attempting to buy the team for ‘97 and link it up with his own TWR concern. When this didn’t work, Dernie, who was contracted to TWR and not the French concern, was drafted into Arrows instead, now newly-based at Leafield when Walkinshaw took over control from Jackie Oliver and Footwork.

“By the time we basically got sorted, it was too late to do a car and certainly to make it,” Dernie says. “The biggest real problem with the car was that we went to the first race with every single hydraulic O-ring groove having been machined to the wrong tolerance. It wasn’t a question of if we would get a hydraulic leak, it was a question of how long it would last before it failed – and that’s pretty demoralizing for everybody.”

The sight of Hill ignominiously pulling off his smoking Arrows on the formation lap of the ’97 Australian GP was a depressing metaphor for where the team was at. Sadly, the suspect component was also one which would come back to haunt the team. And it was – with a margin of 33sec, Hill had less than two laps to go when his throttle started to feel rather peculiar. “The blasted thing broke down, one of the O-rings in the throttle linkage hydraulics failed,” laments Barnard. “Of course, these days they’d have been tested to hell run on a rolling road back in the factory for hours and days on end meaning, theoretically, you wouldn’t get those things happening – although Ferrari still don’t seem to have quite cracked that!”

‘One of the O-rings in the throttle linkage hydraulics failed’;

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/a...-won-that-race

[Fortitude]

The one that got away: Damon Hill, 1997 Hungarian Grand Prix.
An Arrows beating Schumacher's Ferrari? Damon Hill dreamed the impossible dream, but woke before it was over, as he tells Adam Cooper.
ISSUES FEBRUARY 2003
AUTHOR Adam Cooper

In the summer of 1996, it emerged that the Williams team had long intended to replace Damon Hill with Heinz-Harald Frentzen. By the time the news became public, Hill was heading for the world championship, but Damon had to look elsewhere for ’97 and, turning down approaches from Jordan and the new Stewart team, he shocked the F1 world by opting for Arrows. “I regarded Arrows as a one-year holding opportunity,” says Damon. “Tom offered me the best deal. I didn’t want to take a year out, so I thought I’d give Arrows a go: if it comes off, great, I’ve got a good team; if it doesn’t, I’ve got to jump. “I knew I was with a team that had little hope of doing anything, but you don’t say so at the time. You just think, ‘Well, it’s the best option I have at the moment, let’s make the most of it.’ Really, the Yamaha project was always going to be difficult.”

Hill was used to qualifying between 12th and 15th, but in Hungary he took an amazing third, behind title contenders Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve. Hill passed Villeneuve’s Williams at the start and slotted into second. Most observers thought he would soon drop back, and even the man himself didn’t expect too much. “On lap 10 he came out of the last corner and was really struggling. I managed to get a tow from him down the straight and took a lunge down the inside. I knew that he had much more to lose than I did, and I squeezed through. I couldn’t believe it! There I was, in an Arrows, leading a grand prix, having just overtaken Michael. It was the closest you can get to actually laughing while racing!”

Alas, the dream did not last On the penultimate lap Hill slowed suddenly, and former team-mate Villeneuve began to reel him in. “The hydraulics went and I couldn’t change gear. Then the throttle wouldn’t work either, because that was operated by the hydraulics. I was just stuck in fifth gear. There was no way I could make it go any faster. I couldn’t rev the engine, I couldn’t change gear, I just had to tug along. I didn’t think I was going to make it to the finish. I remember thinking, `Bollocks!’ But then you think, `Second ain’t bad, I suppose.’ I don’t think anyone felt that we’d been cheated. You had to laugh really, because we shouldn’t have been there in the first place. The person who was more gutted than anyone was poor old Jackie Oliver.”

‘The one that got away’;

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/a...hat-got-away-3

[Zico]

This race proved that Damon Hill was a real deal. He also had some good races with Jordan.

I remember watching this race on the edge of my seat and was gutted when he had his issue.
While I never saw him as being in the same league as Michael as he was only really able to beat him by being in the best car... but considering how he came into F1, he certainly did very well.

Iirc his arrows at this time had a trick braking system consisting of a moog valve connected to the steering which piped less brake pressure to either he inside front wheel, steering angle dependant. It gave them an advantage in the braking zones for certain corners and allowed them to compete with Ferrari. It got banned shortly after.. or perhaps it was the following season.