{"id":633239,"date":"2026-04-27T03:03:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T03:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/633239\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T03:03:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T03:03:22","slug":"damon-hill-and-jacques-villeneuve-recall-williams-1996-f1-title-karaoke-celebrations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/633239\/","title":{"rendered":"Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve recall Williams\u2019 1996 F1 title karaoke celebrations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Williams<\/a> Formula 1 team-mates Damon Hill<\/a> and Jacques Villeneuve<\/a> have recounted the behind-the-scenes celebrations at the Grove outfit when Hill clinched the 1996 drivers’ championship.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Villeneuve joined Hill at Williams in 1996 for his rookie season in the series, and the two were straight into a championship battle. Ultimately, the Canadian driver finished as runner-up behind Hill, who had been at the team since 1993.<\/p>\n

While he had lost out on the championship, Villeneuve revealed that one of his favourite off-track moments with the team was celebrating Hill’s victory at a karaoke cabin.<\/p>\n

“I would say karaoke cabin,” Villeneuve explained on a special episode of the Williams Team Torque podcast<\/a> alongside Hill. “I think that after you won the championship and we were in the cabin there.<\/p>\n

“There was a general… People were happy you had won in the paddock because they had been there the previous years. They had seen the hard work you put into it.<\/p>\n

“And I was the newcomer. So, it was a good partnership, and it was a good general moment, smiling, and so that was really a cool, happy, positive moment.”<\/p>\n

\"Jacques <\/p>\n

Jacques Villeneuve, Williams congratulates race winner Damon Hill, Williams and Charlie Whiting, FIA official delegate<\/p>\n

Photo by: Sutton Images<\/p>\n

In the same interview, Villeneuve talked about missing out on the 1996 title, admitting that he had no bitterness over his team-mate’s success.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We had a good time that night,” he said. “We had a good party, and I was very happy for him. It didn’t feel like ‘Oh, you know, I lost the championship’. Of course, I was not happy to not have won, but also he was deserving it so much that I was cool with it.”<\/p>\n

Hill moved to Arrows in 1997 while Villeneuve remained at Williams, partnering Heinz-Harald Frentzen<\/a>. Villeneuve claimed his maiden drivers’ championship title that year, with his team-mate finishing second after Michael Schumacher<\/a> was disqualified.<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Williams Formula 1 team-mates Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve have recounted the behind-the-scenes celebrations at the Grove…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,26956,306694,817,813,816,13207,297692,260774,85,1511,819],"class_list":{"0":"post-633239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-damon-hill","11":"tag-damon-hill-and-jacques-villeneuve-recall-williamsu2019-1996-f1-title-karaoke-celebrations","12":"tag-f1","13":"tag-formula-1","14":"tag-formula1","15":"tag-jacques-villeneuve","16":"tag-jeddah-street-circuit","17":"tag-saudi-arabian-gp","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-trendingteam","20":"tag-williams"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}