A fitting end to the darkest season of Formula 1 in living memory – The two championship rivals, separated by only 1 point, colliding in one of the most dubious endings to a World Championship ever seen…

At least until the FIA turned heel and decided the 2021 World Championship.

Going in to the season-ending 1994 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, Bennetton’s Michael Schumacher (Who had led every round of the Championship) was on 92 points, with Williams driver Damon Hill ghosting him on 91.

On Lap 36, race leader Schumacher made a mistake and hit the wall at Turn 5 (The East Terrace), before coming back on the track, as Hill arrived on the scene.

Then, when Hill went to attack, the German turned in and they made contact, sending Schumacher into the wall and out of the race.

The contact broke Hill’s front left wishbone and forced him to retire, giving Schumacher the first of his 7 World Titles, also making him the first German to win the Formula One World Championship, and at the age of 25, was the youngest World Champion since Emerson Fittipaldi in 1972.

“There will be people, of course, who say… that was a desperate manoeuvre by Schumacher to stop Damon Hill winning the championship.” – Murray Walker

It’s easy to be Captain Hindsight with these things, but considering Schumacher had a snowball’s chance in hell of finishing with that much damage to his car, Hill could’ve waited a few corners until the back straight and left Schumacher in the dust and won the World Championship (Barring a mechanical failure), but Hill’s basic instinct was to attack once Schumacher made the error, and he drove straight into Schumacher’s moment of crisis (To quote Jonathan Palmer), and ultimately the championship was decided there and then.

For the record, Hill’s teammate Nigel Mansell won his 31st and final Grand Prix from Ferrari’s Gerhard Berger and McLaren’s Martin Brundle, and 30 years later, Mansell is still the last driver to win a Grand Prix after turning 40 (He was 41 at the time of the race).

As a special feature for this year, Damon Hill returned to Adelaide in March as part of the Adelaide Motorsport Festival, and retold the story of the 1994 race.