Phil Hill
(C) CahierArchive
They say you should never meet your heroes and I've found that to be true with quite a few names from Formula One's glorious past, but not in the case of Phil Hill. I first came across him as a writer, when I used to buy Road & Track, because the American magazine made motor sport seem more glamorous than reading about an autotest in a Croydon car park or a 12-car rally in Derbyshire. It also featured drivers with names like Parnelli Jones, born in Texarkana, Arkansas for goodness sake!
However, it was the more anodyne-sounding Phil Hill who will forever be remembered as the first American to win the Formula One world championship. The quietly spoken ace took the title in 1961, driving a Ferrari at Monza. Cause for great celebration one might have thought, except that the day was marked by tragedy: on lap 2, Hill's team-mate Wolfgang Von Trips, who had started from pole, tangled with Jim Clark which sent his Ferrari flying into the crowd. The German and 15 spectators were killed, but the race continued and Hill even went through with the podium ceremony. The next and final race of the season was at Watkins Glen, but what should have been a triumphant homecoming for the champion elect was something of a damp squib. Ferrari pulled out of the final race as a mark of respect for Von Trips and Hill's only on-track appearance was limited to a lap in the back of an open-top car.
Hill had a dry sense of humour as illustrated by his reflection on the fact that Enzo Ferrari took a lot of persuading to move the engine from the conventional front of the car to the rear: "He thought rear engine cars would go away. Like mumps," Hill said.
