It was lap 36. The Williams of Damon Hill was chasing down the Benetton of Michael Schumacher at the 1994 Australian Grand Prix.

Damon, a clear number two driver for Williams, had just lost his world-renowned teammate, Ayrton Senna, a few races earlier.

And what can only be summarized is a tragic circumstance.

If that wasn't bad enough,

the driver's championship was also on the line. It was just before turn five when Hill had lost

a little time to Schumacher while passing a back marker. Schumacher, pushing hard into turn

five, lost the rear end of his car when he went over a bump. Schumacher went off track, glanced the tire

wall, came back on the track. Hill, unaware that Schumacher had the incident, came upon the

German slower Benetton, and he tried to dive down the inside for the pass. Schumacher turned

into the corner and hit Hill. The two collided nearly flipping Schumacher's car. It ended Schumacher's race immediately,

and it also eventually ended Hills as well with suspension damage. After a review from multiple

angles by race stewards, the German wasn't penalized, and thus Michael Schumacher won the driver's

championship. Williams, well, they won the constructor's championship, but that was cold comfort to

Damon Hill.

It was an incident that he talked about a lot, and Damon Hill has continued to talk about

that incident, as well as Michael Schumacher, for decades to come.

Hi, I'm Todd.

You're listening to the Part for May Stories.

We're taking a second glance at the history of motorsport.

In this episode, we're going to be talking about Damon Hill's bitterness.

Since 1950, Ferrari have been racing for Formula One's biggest prize, the World Championship.

You don't participate that long and not possess a very large footprint on the neck of the sport.

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