Hill's Silverstone triumph on a black day for Schumacher

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It was on July 10, 1994 that Damon Hill emerged victorious in the British Grand Prix, beating Benetton's Michael Schumacher and Ferrari's Jean Alesi.

"I don't quite know what happened," Hill said afterwards. "It is a dream come true that I have won the British Grand Prix. I feel this has completed the hole that my father left in his record."

Although he celebrated on the podium, Schumacher's joy at second place was short lived. He had been handed a five second penalty for twice overtaking pole sitter Hill on the parade lap which ended up proving extremely costly

Benetton objected to the way they were notified and refused to call their driver in. Schumacher was eventually black-flagged by race control, but he claimed he didn't see it and carried on.

"I was told about the five second penalty just before my first pit stop," Schumacher explained.

"The way I understood it was that the time was going to be added at the end of the race, which seemed a bit strange. Then I was told to come in for a stop-go penalty - which I did.

It wasn't enough to assuage race control, and Schumacher was subsequently excluded from the race and handed a $25,000 fine.

"A pity this happened because I think we could have continued our fight," Schumacher said. "Congratulations to Damon Hill and Williams; they ran a good race."

"Michael's penalty was a godsend for us," Hill admitted. "But I still think it would have been a close race nevertheless."

The exclusion promoted McLaren's Mika Hakkinen onto the podium. The Finn survived a last lap scare when he collided with Jordan's Rubens Barrichello, but he managed to drive out of the gravel and cross the line, while the Brazilian headed to the pits.

"I'm very upset with Hakkinen. He threw his car at me so hard he broke the wishbones," fumed Barrichello. "I didn't know that was the last lap because I couldn't see my board so well ... so I came back to the garage."

Originally classified as finishing in fifth, Barrichello was promoted back to fourth as a result of Schumacher's penalty. Only four cars were shown on the lead lap at the finish.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.