“The obvious truth is, we are all likely to kill ourselves if we drive over our heads,” he told his biographer, William F. Nolan. “Personally, my driving has always contained a high caution factor.”
If Hill left a margin because he was more mechanically sympathetic than others, well, wasn’t that wise at a time when racecars were far less reliable than they are today? He was never a showboating racer, the sort who drove flat out until the car broke. Instead he tried to emulate the style of the great Fangio whose policy of winning at the slowest possible speed paid huge dividends. Hill only revealed the true depth of his talent when he had to, be it in qualifying or storming through the field on a comeback drive, or driving in the wet with a car in which he felt comfortable… relatively speaking.
And if Hill left his margin out of desire for self-preservation, that too was a sound policy when cars bucked and shuddered on wire wheels around tracks lined with ditches, trees, and steep banks of solid soil. The consequences of mechanical breakage or driver error were brutal.
But never mistake Hill’s self-admitted ‘caution factor’, his lack of bravado, for a lack of bravery. After finishing runner-up in the 1957 12-hour sportscar race at Reims, Hill witnessed the demise of friend and compatriot Herbert Mackay-Fraser in the supporting Formula 2 race. This was mere months after Hill had also lost two Ferrari teammates, Eugenio Castellotti in a test at Modena Autodromo, and Alfonso de Portago on the Mille Miglia.
“Any elation I felt at having done well at Reims was canceled out by the death of Mac Fraser,” Hill explained. “Mac was in a very fast Lotus Mk. XI. On Lap 27, he spun on a patch of oil, flipped the car and was thrown into a pole. This was an awful shock to me because we were close friends – but when you race you accept the hazards along with the rewards. You simply cannot allow another fatality, however personal, to make you doom-conscious. It’s difficult for the average racegoer to understand this necessary state of mind, this seeming callousness, but a professional must rule out all destructive emotions if he wants to continue. When three drivers such as Castellotti, Portago and Fraser die in the same season, it isn’t easy, but you learn to adjust to the danger or you quit. And I wasn’t ready to quit.”
Quite the opposite, in fact – he was pushing to be included in Ferrari’s Formula 1 team and would soon be resentful of the fact that Enzo appeared to perceive him more as a sportscar specialist, whereas Castellotti, Luigi Musso, Peter Collins and Mike Hawthorn were allowed to flit back and forth between disciplines.
By then, Hill had already won his class in the Sebring 12 Hours, sharing a Ferrari 750 Monza Spyder with Carroll Shelby, had done the same with Olivier Gendebien in a Ferrari 857S in the Buenos Aires 1000km, had twice won the Road America 500 (yup, Ferrari both times), and three times conquered the Monterey Grand Prix on the roads of Pebble Beach, once in a Jaguar XK120 and twice in Ferraris.
Source: Yahoo Sports (Motorsport.com)