Damon Hill recalls ‘awkward’ moment with ‘embarrassed’ Michael Schumacher

Damon Hill shed more light on his rivalry with Michael Schumacher, and a cap slap which appeared in a recent documentary.

Sky’s recently released documentary, titled ‘Hill’, provides a detailed look into Damon Hill’s racing career and harrowing life story, having lost his multi-time World Champion father Graham Hill in a plane crash, while Damon was only a teenager.

Damon Hill explains ’embarrassed’ Michael Schumacher incident

One piece of footage which attracted particular attention was when Damon’s former title rival – F1 icon Michael Schumacher – gives the victorious Brit’s cap a knock.

Speaking with The Guardian, Hill shed more light on what went down.

“He was embarrassed and didn’t know how to respond to someone who had beaten him,” said Hill. “It was an awkward moment.

“I tried to have conversations with him and it wasn’t possible. Our values were different.”

Hill arrived on the Formula 1 scene in 1992, and by 1996 – after two runner-up results to Schumacher in the Drivers’ Championship – Hill’s time finally arrived.

Missing out on the 1994 crown to Schumacher by a single point, the following year saw Williams emerge as the cream of the crop, Hill clinching his maiden World Championship ahead of team-mate Jacques Villeneuve. He was dropped by Williams at the end of the season despite his title win.

Hill admits that Schumacher, as a rival, brought out the very best that he had to offer.

“I was nowhere near as good as him, and I’m never going to pretend that I was,” Hill said of Schumacher.

“But, having him as a foil brought out the most I could get out of myself, and I know what it’s like to get driven absolutely to the maximum.

“Sometimes I was a match for him but, aged 36, it was hard. He was 26 and I was fighting the clock.”

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Another Brit to find out just how brutal it was to battle Schumacher was David Coulthard.

The pair famously clashed in a Spa 1998 pit-lane confrontation, after their elimination from the race.

Coulthard, in a recent appearance on the Red Flags podcast, would discuss how for Schumacher accepting he was wrong was not in the toolbox.

He found that out when then-F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone got the pair together to close the book.

“When we turned up at the Italian Grand Prix, he [Bernie Ecclestone] organised for us to sit down in his motorhome and clear the air, just Michael and I,” said Coulthard.

“And that’s where the conversation was born out of me going, ‘Michael, I accept my part in that accident. You’ve got to accept yours’. He wouldn’t accept it. And I asked him, ‘Surely you must be wrong sometimes?’ And he went, ‘No’.

“And I went, ‘Come on, when you’re at home with your wife, you must be wrong’. He went, ‘No’. And, ‘Have you ever been wrong?’ And he paused, and went, ‘Not that I remember’. And at that point, I just gave up and went, ‘Right, that’s why he’s a World Champion and I’m not, because I know when I’m wrong’.

“We shook hands and moved on.”

After winning his first World titles with Benetton in 1994/95, Schumacher established himself as a Ferrari and F1 icon, winning five titles in a row between 2000-04.

Schumacher retired for the first time after the 2006 campaign, before an unsuccessful return with Mercedes in 2010 which lasted three seasons.

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