S7 E1: Hill dropped by Williams
Bring Back V10s - Classic F1 stories
The Race Media Ltd
4.9 • 764 Ratings
🗓️ 5 January 2023
⏱️ 86 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Karun Chandhok and Edd Straw join Glenn Freeman to revisit the summer of 1996, when Williams decided to drop championship leader Damon Hill for 1997 in favour of Heinz-Harald Frentzen. We look at what was going on behind the scenes at Williams, and put to the test some of the theories Hill has expressed over the years for why the team that gave him his big break in F1 decided it didn't want to carry on with him any longer.
GET IN TOUCH: Use the hashtag #BringBackV10s on Twitter or email bringbackv10s@the-race.com
Did you know The Race has an app? Download it today on iOS or Android
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The Athletic. |
| 0:02.7 | Damon Hill recovered from getting trounced by Michael Schumacher in 1995 to win the world |
| 0:17.2 | title the following season. |
| 0:18.9 | But before he'd wrapped things up, he had to deal with the shock news that he was being dropped by Williams for the following season, but before he'd wrapped things up, he had to deal with |
| 0:21.5 | the shock news that he was being dropped by Williams for the following season, even if he |
| 0:26.4 | won the title. To make matters worse, the story was broken in the media weeks before Frank |
| 0:32.2 | Williams confirmed to Hill that Heinzheld Frensen was replacing him for 1997, and while trying to focus on |
| 0:39.1 | winning the title, Hill was left scrambling to grab one of the few remaining seats on the |
| 0:43.6 | grid, eventually ending up taking the number one to arrows. I'm Glenn Freeman, and we're kicking |
| 0:49.1 | off this new series of Bring Back V10s with a monster of an episode, as we'll get into what was going on at the time, |
| 0:55.7 | tracing the chain of events as they played out in public, and what was going on behind the scenes, |
| 1:00.8 | with the help of a few insiders as well. |
| 1:03.6 | Joining me to kick off Series 7 are Karim Chandok and Ed Straar. |
| 1:08.2 | And Karun, let's just get straight into it. |
| 1:10.2 | Great to have you with us for the start of a new series. |
| 1:13.3 | So you can have the first opening question of series seven. |
| 1:16.2 | When you think of Damon Hill being dropped by Williams at the end of 1996, |
| 1:21.4 | what's the first thing that comes to mind? |
| 1:23.9 | Complete shock. |
| 1:25.1 | I mean, what are they doing? |
| 1:27.0 | Dropping the leader of the world championship. |
| 1:29.1 | This makes no sense. Follow quickly by, oh, hang on a second. This is the third potential William |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Race Media Ltd, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Race Media Ltd and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.