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Quotes by Damon Hill

At the start of the year, I felt that given the machinery, there were bound to be places where I would win because of sheer chance. I didn't want to rely on that because I knew I had to show my ability. So I looked at the season and made an assessment as to where my best opportunities might come.
– Damon Hill
Because it is my second season with the team, no time has been wasted in getting to know the people I'm working with. I am aware of what the team is capable of and how the organisation works, and they are familiar with what makes me tick.
– Damon Hill
Failure should be nothing more than an embarrassment, like ending up in a gravel trap, rather than spending weeks in hospital.
– Damon Hill
I am not allowing myself to get carried away.
– Damon Hill
I am surprised people took so long to pick up on the fact that my contract expires at the end of this year. Eddie has to decide who he wants to drive, so there is no secret anywhere. I am not concerned. It does not sit with my objectives to be competitive.
– Damon Hill
I am very much aware that if I am getting good press at the moment I could just as easily be getting bad press. I cannot have the good and forget the bad. You have to accept it both ways.
– Damon Hill
I don't see myself as an international megastar. I still put the rubbish out late at night-sometimes in only my underpants. Mind you, nowadays I have a good look around to make sure there is no one there. I just think this whole star thing is a gas and I think the neighbors think it's pretty funny as well. We've got some great neighbors.
– Damon Hill
I had a lot of time to think, and that is not good for your mind. And when it actually happened, it was not so much a celebration but the relief. It was an exorcism anxiety. After each race there is a procedure in which you get taken off to the podium and the TV interviews.
– Damon Hill
I have always liked a challenge.
– Damon Hill
I have never been better prepared for a season. Last year I was out of the car for five months, and it took me half the season to really get up to speed-but right now I feel I'm on the pace from the very start. If you are a top concert pianist, you need to practise for about four hours a day just to maintain your standards. And it's the same with being a racing driver.
– Damon Hill
I nearly won the British Grand Prix in 1993, but missed out when the engine gave up on me. That moment was one of sheer disappointment.
– Damon Hill
I think at times I appear to be miserable when I am not... I might be having quite a good thought at that moment, but it seems I look miserable. I am not.
– Damon Hill
I try to keep myself on an even keel by trying to be as critical of myself as I am of other people. I try to separate my performance from myself.
– Damon Hill
I was happy in Hungary, but I would have been happier if it had been a great race where I'd come out on top-like at Spa, where I enjoyed myself. I really didn't enjoy myself in Hungary. It was more like slow torture.
– Damon Hill
If I am pushed I will push back, that is the way I am. I am very British. We don't like to be pushed around. When the chips are down we might have to step into grey areas.
– Damon Hill
If I am treated fairly, I like to do things in a fair manner. That is the way I have been all my career. I haven't tried to do things in an underhanded way.
– Damon Hill
If someone is being absolutely critical of me as a driver, what could they say? I am also critical of myself to try and keep things in perspective. That is very important.
– Damon Hill
If you lose the history of F1, that could be damaging to the long-term future of F1.
– Damon Hill
It completely astonishes me how often I get recognized by so many and such different people. That is a measure of the incredible appeal that F1 has.
– Damon Hill
It was five years since I'd won a race, so I was a bit bewildered.
– Damon Hill
It worries me sometimes the way some people get so worked up that they have to push and shove to get an autograph. If they are there, I will try and sign as many as I possibly can, but when people start pushing, you have little kids being crushed and I'd rather not be involved creating that kind of trouble.
– Damon Hill
It's astonishing that Ferrari have not won the championship for so long. They have made it look hard work, but it shows how difficult F1 is. It underlines that with the best budget, everything at your disposal, the best drivers, so to speak, you cannot win every race. That puts the achievements of McLaren and Williams into much starker contrast.
– Damon Hill
Last year was a lifetime, a whole career in one season. We went from being the dregs to winners.
– Damon Hill
People ask me to describe myself, but it's a very personal thing. You don't feel comfortable.
– Damon Hill
People don't want to pick up their papers and see that everything went to plan and this was what was expected. So there is a hype factor because the journalists have to make more of it. I find it amusing. Look at the way they report on the England football team... I don't think anyone really believes all of it.
– Damon Hill
Realistically, we could aim for the top three in the constructors championship. Realistically, we could look at winning more races. Three race wins would be very satisfying.
– Damon Hill
Some books claim I have already clocked up a century of Grands Prix, but let me put the record straight. Australia will be my 100th start, and I aim to mark the milestone with a cracking performance. It could even be celebrated with a victory.
– Damon Hill
The British tend to shy away from the spotlight. We don't like being singled out in any way, and I think that is something which is important for me to learn to do.
– Damon Hill
The last time I felt so confident and excited about a coming season was in 1996-the year I won my world title. There is a real air of expectancy surrounding the entire Jordan team, and I am itching to get down to business and race the new car in this weekend's curtain raiser in Melbourne.
– Damon Hill
The problem comes when you say that danger is part of the equation. Then you don't do any more work on safety. That shouldn't happen.
– Damon Hill
The sport would not survive today if drivers were being killed at the rate they were in the 1960s and '70s. It would have been taken off the air. It is beamed into people's living rooms on Sunday afternoons, with children watching.
– Damon Hill
The whole experience is rising to the challenge every time. You never know what might happen. You might be talking to the future world champion.
– Damon Hill
There are a lot of factors in the life of an F1 driver which can combine to make you believe that you are somehow above normality. I think that is a mistake to start believing that. But, at the same time, it is important to be confident.
– Damon Hill
There is a good atmosphere in the team which won't allow for any sort of primadonna-ish behavior.
– Damon Hill
There is a lot to be said for self-belief. It is a good part of the equation and I don't think that it was with us this time last year. There was more self-doubt then, whereas now we are starting to believe that we should be up there at the front.
– Damon Hill
To be honest, I think for part of my late teens my character didn't really develop very much. I was in a state of cold storage.
– Damon Hill
We came to the tracks where I knew I should show well, and I knew I had to play my joker and really go for it. Silverstone was the first place where I looked like I was going to win, and I felt good about Hockenheim, too.
– Damon Hill
When you get into a pack of cars, then you feel the problem worst, handicapping the driver and handicapping our ability to race. When there's a crosswind, the cars suffer badly as well, which makes them even more difficult to control. They are always fun to drive, but motor racing should be about the best drivers racing the best cars, which offers the best challenge, and my feeling now is that we have come to a bit of a cul-de-sac.
– Damon Hill
Winter testing is essential but there comes a point where you have had enough of all the rehearsals and the pretend racing. You just want to get down to the real action.
– Damon Hill
You have to do everything possible for the safety of the competitors, spectators and the people who work in F1. But we mustn't emasculate it. We mustn't take away the spectacle. At the moment, we have a good balance, but I will never give up working and pushing the FIA to make changes in the interests of safety. Everywhere you look, there is an opportunity to hurt yourself and we don't want F1 to be marred.
– Damon Hill
You learn by experience, and overcoming setbacks make you stronger and means you are prepared for any eventuality. Now I am who I am, slightly batty in some ways, but in other ways fairly level-headed.
– Damon Hill
You should never feel comfortable. There is something wrong if you are. You should always feel under threat, on the edge of your seat and pushing yourself. Win one and you want to win more. It's never-ending.
– Damon Hill