F1 News
Formula 1 flashback: Damon Hill on McLaren's "insult" offer
In 1996 Damon Hill followed in his father's footsteps and won the Formula 1 drivers world championship. It would remain one championship because, after his successful year at Williams, he was no longer wanted at the team. A fairly unusual situation for a world champion, who are often wanted to be retained.
In 1997 Williams raced with the new star Jacques Villeneuve and the promising German Heinz-Harald Frentzen, meaning that there was no room for Hill at the team.
A reason for this could have been Williams' swap from a Renault engine to a BMW and the German company might have insisted on having a German racer.
However, Hill believes that it was already organized much earlier on.
"Because 1995 was disappointing for me, Frank [Williams] planned Frentzen and Jacques for 1997," Hill told Motorsport-Total. "He could not get out of the contracts. Then came 1996 and I think he thought, "Oh, God, what should I do now?" He tried to reverse the deal, but it didn't work.
This meant that the British champion was hung out to dry and meant that he had to switch to Arrows who were a team well down the bottom of the grid.
One year contract
Arrows offered Hill a one-year contract, which was exactly what he wanted as he wanted to be free in 1998 because he knew that Adrian Newey would switch from Williams to McLaren. The current Red Bull designer was already seen as a master designer and therefore joining a team he was at would mean having a fast car.
Unfortunately for Hill, he did not get the seat at McLaren in 1998. Mika Hakkinen remained in the seat but Hill did have conversations with the team. However, Hill was insulted by the proposal that Dennis made.
"He did not make me an attractive proposal, it was more of an insult," Hill said. "I thought: what? I am a world champion! I think he just wanted to provoke me."
Hill went on to sign for Jordan but never got to win the world championship again.