Damon Hill - Lights Out, Full Throttle: The Good the Bad and the Bernie of Formula One

Johnny: Ill start this one. Probably the most anticipated race of the year globally is also the most boring. Discuss.

Damon: No its not? OK. Ill colour this one in for you, Herbert. Lets hype it up a bit at least. Its basically the most expensive film set on the planet. Monaco transcends motor racing. Its a carnival of excess. A celebration of massive amounts of wonga and bling. And one of the trickiest challenges a racing driver is ever going to have. I love it.

Johnny: OK. Good challenge. So if were going to have a chapter about Monaco we really have to start with your old man, who used to be known as Mr Monaco, of course.

Damon: Indeed he did. Dads reign in Monaco wasnt quite as long as Prince Rainiers, but during the 1960s, which is considered to be a halcyon era for so many things, he won it five times half the years in that decade. So he was The Man. Somehow he managed to fit in winning the Indianapolis 500 in 1966 as well, which was a week after Monaco. He must have had to qualify the car in the USA for the Indy, then fly back to do the Monaco GP, finishing a modest third, then fly back out to Indy to win that. Busy man.

Fascinating fact is that when Dad first went to Monaco, while doing his National Service in charge of the engine room of HMS Swiftsure, hed never even heard of the Monaco Grand Prix and knew nothing at all about motor racing. He even went to the Casino and won a few quid. Maybe a portent of things to come? Just five years later, in 1958, he was in his first ever Grand Prix, the Monte Carlo, racing for Lotus. He tells a very funny story in his book where, about forty laps in, hes sitting there in third place thinking, This motor racing larks a piece of cake! when his left rear wheel promptly fell off.

One question that gets asked a lot is why my old man was so successful at Monaco. One of my theories is that the track appealed to his mind in a way that other circuits did not. Theres no time to think at Monaco and no time to relax. You cannot take your eye off the ball for a split second. I think Dads biggest talent was his power of concentration, and his stamina from years of rowing, and a modicum of skill, of course all things in high demand at Monaco. Thats my theory anyway. The motor racing historian Doug Nye put it well: When it comes to Monaco, he said, Graham Hill strode that stage like a Colossus! Quite a good quote, but he didnt just mean his racing performances. He meant Monaco was a stage in every respect and that Dad somehow bagged the leading role. An amalgam of David Niven, Errol Flynn and Terry Thomas, Dad had that thing that made everyone feel he was doing it for them as much as for himself. He had the famous Kipling common touch, could hang with the Rainiers, yet mix on the level with everyone else. He was as comfortable standing in the terraces watching Arsenal (wearing a Savile Row suit, mind!) as he was golfing with Sean Connery or shooting with the Queen. He was a guy whod come from humble beginnings and risen to the top without becoming a snob about it. The previous Prince Rainier said something nice about him. He described him as Mediterranean, meaning British but without the chilliness. Thats class, that is. Know what I mean, Herbert?

Johnny: Class. Its my middle name. Did you ever go to watch him race there?

Damon: No, I never went, which is a bit of a shame. But I remember seeing him win in 1969. The Monaco Grand Prix was hardly ever on television in those days but it happened to be that year. We were at a friends house somewhere in Kent and I was playing in the garden with Major Matt Mason, which was a kind of bendy rubber toy astronaut, not a friend of the family!

Johnny: I thought it was the family dog.

Damon: Funny name for a dog? No, Herbert, it was a kind of Buzz Lightyear toy and it was bloody lethal. Inside each of the rubber arms and legs was a wire and if you bent them round too much the wire would poke out. Anyway, as I was busy impaling myself on Major Matt Mason my mother came out and said, Come inside, Damon! Now! Quick! Dads winning the Monaco Grand Prix! Im not sure what kind of reaction she was expecting but I sort of lazily got up, reluctantly dropped Major Matt Mason and dragged my grumpy little arse indoors. The TV reception in remote Kentish villages was almost non-existent in those days so all I remember seeing was a foggy black and white picture of my dad waving to the crowd as he drove through the gasworks hairpin on his last lap. I wasnt too impressed with the picture, but I do remember getting a shot of something like pride to see the old man at work. Maybe that planted a bit of a seed? I wonder. I was too stupid to know what I thought about anything back then. But I knew if you bent Major Matt Masons leg too many times youd get stabbed in the finger. Ah, happy days!

So what was your first experience of the Principality, Johnny?

Johnny: The first time I went was in 1987 for a Formula Three race. It was a support race for the Grand Prix and I remember being absolutely wowed by the place. You were there too, I think, werent you?

Damon: In 87? I was, but I didnt qualify, damn it!

Johnny: Id never been anywhere like it before in my life. It was just so different to everywhere else. Can you recall the first time you ever walked the track? I do. Or at least I remember the first time I attempted to walk the track. You couldnt really do a full track walk in those days, but thanks to the people at Benetton, whom I already had a connection with, I managed to do about half of it. My first thought was, this isnt a bloody racetrack, its just a concrete den of iniquity. How fabulous! There were empty bottles of beer absolutely everywhere and even the odd body. Not dead bodies, of course. Bodies that had been soaked in rather too much alcohol and for rather too long. It was absolute carnage from start to finish. What I remember most, though, were those turbo V6 engines knocking out 1,200 bhp at 12,000 rpm experiencing that was genuinely life changing for me. The hemmed-in track also made everything the sounds, the speed, the smells, the mistakes and the danger very, very real. There was no get-out clause at Monaco. Or at least thats how it felt when I walked part of the track. You were either on it or in the wall. Until I first raced at Monaco the most dangerous track Id ever raced at was probably Oulton Park. This place, though, was just ridiculous.

Damon: The only track you could compare it to back then was Pau. Did you ever race there?

Johnny: Nope. I should have when I was racing F3000, but I crashed the race before in Vallelunga in Italy and had concussion so was not allowed to drive. I do remember driving F3 at Monaco, though, for a one-off race. The F1 paddock was where it always is but we were based by the tennis courts, which is about a mile away. That meant we had to drive our cars to the track, so basically on the open road. We did so at about six oclock in the morning prior to qualifying, so while all the residents were trying to get some sleep, a parade of F3 cars would take to the roads which were not closed like the ones that made up the track, by the way and basically cause mayhem.