'I had to get myself together' – how Hill reset for 1996

Damon Hill has admitted that his bitter rivalry with Michael Schumacher forced him to confront his own weaknesses in a "psychological battle" before he was finally ready to fight for the 1996 Drivers' Championship.

The tense relationship between the pair first erupted in 1994, when the title contest came down to the season finale in Australia. Separated by just a single point, the two controversially made contact at the decisive race, handing the championship to Schumacher.

They clashed repeatedly the following year at circuits including Silverstone and Monza, with both drivers handed suspended race bans amid increasingly aggressive on-track incidents. Schumacher ultimately dominated the 1995 championship with nine Grand Prix victories, leaving Hill determined to step back and assess why he kept losing out to the German.

'My backside was whipped' – the low of 1995

Speaking on the latest episode of the official F1 podcast, Beyond The Grid, Hill laid bare the humiliation he felt after being outclassed in 1995.

"It's very depressing when you've been beaten and you're not getting the results you want. It can be quite a downer," he said.

"So I was pretty down after '95 because I basically had my backside whipped by Schumacher and my nose rubbed in it. And I didn't like it. It was humiliating.

"Over the winter, I knew that I had '96 as a great opportunity to maybe win a title. So I had to get myself together. You have to let go of whatever has passed. And of course, hope springs eternal. And if you've got a car that is going to be good and you've got a chance of winning, then that's all we think about.

"You start to think about the future. You start thinking about what's to come. But if you've got a weakness, if you've got a flaw, you need to address that. And so I had to get my head around why I wasn't there.

"I didn't have the right stuff that everyone was talking about. Schumacher had just won a second title and clearly he was something special.

"And I just thought, I don't like that. I don't like the fact that I don't have that special thing. What is that special thing? How do you get it? And can someone like me also have that special thing?"

The reward: champion in 1996

The self-reflection proved more confronting than Hill expected, but his off-season work paid off. He won half of the races in 1996, with Williams team mate Jacques Villeneuve emerging as his closest challenger. Schumacher had switched from Benetton to Ferrari – a team that had not produced a drivers' champion since Jody Scheckter won the 1979 title – and was prepared to struggle, though he still won three rounds.

Poor reliability at the Scuderia meant Hill was crowned champion with 97 points – 19 clear of Villeneuve and 38 ahead of Schumacher.

'The mental thing' – lessons learned

Hill explained that the key was understanding the political and psychological dimension of a title fight, and accepting how his own behaviour had affected his team.

"The mental thing was to understand that when you're fighting for a world championship, you are also involved in a political and psychological battle," he said.

"I made mistakes in '95 by getting embroiled in the game of talking about the competition and the battle between me and Michael. The press had made great capital out of all of this rivalry, and I'd fallen prey to it. Michael was very good at rubbing my nose in it, you know, and it was damaging to me and also to the way that my team thought of me. Nobody wants to think that their guy's a loser.

"And so, I have to address that. I had to come back in '96 with the right attitude and understand that the way I behaved affected the team, and I hadn't really properly appreciated it. And the great drivers understand how to get the team behind you and around them, to help them succeed."

The full conversation is available on the latest episode of Beyond The Grid, across all major podcasting platforms and on the F1 YouTube channel.