In 1996, Damon Hill claimed the Formula 1 world championship—defying the odds and overcoming familial tragedy to step out of his father’s shadow and become a racing legend in his own right.
If you are at all interested in the history of Formula One and/or in the history of television sport, then this should provide you with quite an illuminating documentary. Otherwise, it’s really nothing at all special. Using two single-shot piece to camera interviews with Damon Hill and his wife Geor
... gie, we are taken on a whistle stop tour of his life that started with World Champion father Graham before a plane crash rendered him fatherless and his family all but bankrupt. He was originally more of a bike man, but later in his twenties managed to get himself a job as a test driver for Williams Renault and the rest, as they say… Motor car racing is a sport that has always benefited from being at the more expensive end of our pastimes, and that meant that much more of it was filmed, much more of the lives of those taking part was filmed and fortunately here the archive researcher/producer has trawled widely to find some remarkable footage of Hill as a youngster from home movies and married them with action photography as his racing career stuttered off the grid and into the history books. The camera liked him - he had Hollywood good looks and a cheeky smile, but the lack of contribution from any of his contemporaries as to him, his personality, his strengths and flaws rather leaves us with a chronology of the sport rather than much of an insight into a man who probably has blood made by Castrol. It is watchable, but facts being what they are it tries to build a sense of jeopardy and excitement where there wasn’t and in the end becomes a little too procedural and sterile a story of a man who must have had more going on than this.
