Graham Hill was one of the first F1 media super stars; he looked like a leading actor and behaved like a film star, lapping up the adulation of an adoring public. He had great wit and humour, and his two World Drivers' Championships testament to his skills as a driver. The record books suggest that he continued well after his prime, but he remains the only driver to achieve the Triple Crown of Motorsport.

The Triple Crown has two definitions; winning the world championship, [1962, 1968] the Indianapolis 500, [1966] and the Le Mans 24 hours, [1972], or winning the Monaco Grand Prix, [1963, 1964, 1965, 1968, 1969] Indianapolis 500 and the Le Mans 24 hours. (Graham Hill qualifies on either definition).

Graham Hill died not in a racecar accident but as a result of a plane crash when he was at the controls. His son Damon Hill become drivers' world champion in 1996 making him and his father the first, and to-date, the only father son world drivers' champions.
 

Norman Graham Hill was born and raised in north London were he witnessed and experience the Blitz during his teenage years. He took an apprenticeship at Smith Instruments upon leaving technical school, but had to serve his National Service in the Royal Navy, which he disliked. As a small way of breaking regulations, Hill grew a neatly trimmed moustache that became in later years his 'trademark'.

Hill did not have a background in motorsport, and indeed did not pass his driving test to age 24, he had however had a nasty motorcycle accident, badly braking his thighbone, leaving him with a permanently shortened his left leg. He became a very keen rower, joining in 1952 the London Rowing Club where he excelled. Famously, Hill adopted the colours and cap design of London RC for his racing helmet - dark blue with white oar-shaped tabs. (Damon Hill later adopted these same colours).

Graham Hill 'discovered' racing by chance; in the early 1950's he saw an advert to drive a Formula 3 car around a few laps of Brands Hatch. Hill immediately was hooked by racing, soon giving up his job, living for a while on unemployment benefit and then working for very little reward as a mechanic at a racing school. Fortunately, the young Hill met Colin Chapman, who at that time was developing Lotus. Hill joined the team as a mechanic, but soon was able through great charm talk his way into a drive.

Colin Chapman entered the Lotus team to F1 competition in 1958, Graham Hill had his first opportunity at the Monaco GP; he had to retire due to break down. (However, in the coming years, Monaco and Graham Hill would become synonymous; Hill won in Monaco five times, and was consequently nicknamed Mr Monaco).

The 1958 and 1959 Lotus car was slow and unreliable and Hill wanted much more. He moved to BRM in 1960 and worked incredibly hard with the team that had struggled for success for a number of years. His force of personality had a great effect on the team, and results started steadily to improve.

In the 1962 season Graham Hill won the Dutch, German, Italian and South African Grands Prix and won his first world championship. His outgoing personality and dashing good looks greatly endeared him to the public and he became a recognised figure outside of the racing world. Graham Hill had the image of the archetypal Racing driver, flirting with pretty girls and party going. He welcomed more danger; buying a plane and becoming the pilot of what he termed, 'Hillarious Airways'. 

Hill did not limit his race driving to F1, and in 1966, he won the Indianapolis 500 driving for Lola Ford. He was fiercely ambitious, and the BRM team was struggling after 1962 to build him a car capable of winning the championship. In 1967, Graham Hill re-joined Lotus.

The Lotus cars were very fast but fragile, Jim Clark arguably the greatest F1 driver of all time Jim Clark was Graham Hill's teammate, was killed 1968 Clark  and shortly afterwards Mike Spense crashed and died at Indianapolis. The team were devastated by the magnitude of their loss, but Graham Hill brilliantly responded, he drove the fragile Lotus at unnerving speeds to win in Spain, Monaco, and Mexico, to claim his second world drivers' title.

Graham Hill won his last F1 championship race in 1969, appropriately the Monaco GP. (His fifth win of the iconic race, a record that was to last until Ayrton Senna's sixth win at Monaco in 1993).

Hill had a very serious accident at the '69 US GP; he had spun and stalled his Lotus, and got out to push start his car, (unthinkable in modern F1 cars) he resumed racing at high speed and then because of a sudden tyre deflation crashed. He had not refastened his seat belts and was thrown out of the car, breaking his right knee and badly dislocating the left.   
Graham Hill recovered from his injuries but many felt, and the results indicated, that he never raced as well in F1 again. However, he was to have one last great highlight in motor racing when he won with Henri Pescarolo the 1972, Le Mans 24 hours, (completing the Triple Crown of Motorsport).

Following his crash in America in 1969, Hill struggled to find a suitable F1 drive, periods with Rob Walker and Brabham producing poor results. Consequently, in 1973 he formed his own F1 team, -Embassy Hill Racing. Disappointedly, he and the team failed to perform at the heights Hill demanded of himself and others and after failing to qualify for the 1975 Monaco GP Hill announced his retirement from driving, his place in the team to be taken by Hill's protégé, the highly talented driver, Tony Brise.

On November 29, 1975, returning from a test session at the Paul Ricard circuit in France, Hill was killed when trying to land his aeroplane in dense fog at the Elstree airfield near London. The plane crashed and burned, killing all aboard; - Embassy Hill team manager, Ray Brimble, mechanics Tony Alcock and Terry Richards, designer Andy Smallman and driver Tony Brise. Unfortunately, Hill was not insured, and the claims from the families of the others killed in the crash caused great financial hardship to Hill's family.

Graham Hill was a fabulous driver with a personality to match, his record of 176 Grand Prix starts remained in place for over a decade, being equalled by Jacques Laffite. It is true that he perhaps should have retired earlier, but such does not detract from his place in the upper echelons of drivers. He greatly helped to widen the audience for racing is remembered with great affection.

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