Having been involved in four championship battles and ultimately winning one in 1996, Damon Hill knows what he’s talking about when he shares his opinion on the 2024 championship battle. And his experience says that he’d rather be in Max Verstappen’s position than Lando Norris if he were fighting for the title this season.
In a Live Q&A session at the F1 paddock club, as shared on the ‘F1 Explains’ podcast, a fan asked Hill whether he would like to be the leader or the chaser in this year’s championship.
In response, Hill explained that he would rather be in Verstappen‘s position leading the championship because having a points cushion over your nearest rival always gives any driver a psychological advantage.
“I think that’s a very good question. I think that it’s better to have the advantage and protect it. You got nothing to lose if you’re chasing but at the same time you’re behind, you literally are not leading so it’s always a better position to be in to have those points,” Hill remarked.
He also noted that in any sport, the athletes have to deal with a lot of pressure and tension, so it’s always better to be in the lead than try to take it away from someone.
The former Williams driver followed this up with a valuable insight about fighting for a championship that could come in handy for Verstappen later in the season if things go down to the wire.
Hill suggests drivers should know when to concede and when to fight hard
After Hill’s original response, podcast host Christian Hewgill followed up with the question about whether drivers think about the championship points or positions when being overtaken by their rivals on the track.
Hill explained that it’s never a good thing to be thinking about the championship or the points in the middle of the race because drivers already know before the race what they have to do to secure the championship. So, any amount of thinking and planning should be done before the race and not during the wheel-to-wheel action.
“There may be times when you can concede the lead to a guy or concede the win of a race just to get the points you need to become world champion. So you’ve got to have a bit of pre-race calculation as to the possible scenario but then you have to have them already formulated”, Hill said.
It’ll be interesting to see how both Verstappen and Norris go about their championship battle with just eight more races to go in the season. While the Dutchman has a 62-point lead, the McLaren driver has a much faster car to fight with, as things stand amid Red Bull’s struggles.
