❝
Hill will tell you he is not a brave man, but the evidence is to the contrary. He won his first Le Mans in 1958 by stomping on the gas instead of the brake in the middle of the night in a blinding rainstorm. More prudent drivers slowed, and when the storm eased, Hill was too far ahead to be caught.
He won once at Sebring in another blinding rainstorm.
“When you passed me, I was horrified,” said the Swedish driver Jo Bonnier after the race. “You were laughing. I didn’t see how you could stay on the road at such speed. What were you laughing about?”
“It amused me the way the rain was running down your beard,” Hill replied. “You looked so uncomfortable.”
❞— from The Cruel Sport: Grand Prix Racing 1959-1967 by Robert Daley.
❝The Ferrari driver, Count von Trips, described screeching to a stop inches in front of a body lying in the road. Trips jumped out and dragged the man away. Pieces of machinery littered the road, and Trips began to drag wreckage aside, his work illuminated by the main hulk of the car, which was burning fiercely. Trips stayed with the injured driver until an ambulance came to take over, then jumped back into his Ferrari and rejoined the race.❞
— 1958 24 Hours of Le Mans from Cars at Speed by Robert Daley.
