Graham Hill
Graham Hill won two Formula 1 World Championships, but his most singular achievement is one nobody has matched before or since: victory at the Monaco Grand Prix, the Indianapolis 500, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, motorsport's unofficial 'Triple Crown.' He was also, famously, half of the only father-son pair to have each won a World Championship.
Graham Hill won the Formula 1 World Championship in 1962 and 1968, but it is his completion of motorsport's Triple Crown — victory at Monaco, the Indianapolis 500, and Le Mans — that sets him apart from every other driver in the sport's history. No one else has managed all three, and the phrase itself exists largely because of his achievement.
He was also, alongside his son Damon, one half of the only father-son pair to have each won a World Championship, though Graham did not live to see Damon's 1996 title. His death in a plane crash in 1975, piloting his own light aircraft in poor visibility, also claimed the lives of several members of his own Embassy Hill racing team, a tragedy that ended both his life and the team he had built in his final competitive years.
Beyond the results, Hill was remembered as one of the most engaging personalities the sport has produced — a natural entertainer whose dry humour and moustachioed charisma helped popularise Formula 1 in Britain during the 1960s, well beyond what his results alone might have generated. His legacy now sits jointly with his son's: the Hills remain motor racing's only two-generation championship family.
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Hill won the Monaco Grand Prix a record five times, won the Indianapolis 500 in 1966 on just his second attempt, and won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1972 as part of a Matra crew. No other driver in history has won all three of these events, and the achievement is still referred to within motorsport as the 'Triple Crown' specifically because Hill is the only person to have completed it. Fernando Alonso has spent years of his own career explicitly chasing the same feat.
Graham Hill's son Damon won the Formula 1 World Championship in 1996, more than two decades after his father's second title. They remain the only father and son to have each won the championship, a fact frequently noted whenever the sport discusses its handful of genuine racing dynasties. Graham died when Damon was still a teenager, meaning Damon pursued and achieved his own championship without his father present to see it.
After more than fifteen years driving for other constructors, Hill established his own team, Embassy Hill, in the early 1970s, taking on the dual role of team owner and driver. The venture was ambitious but troubled, and Hill retired from driving himself in 1975 to focus on running the team, only for the entire operation to be devastated by tragedy later that same year.
Beyond his driving, Hill built a reputation as one of the most naturally funny and socially engaging figures in motor racing, a skilled raconteur who was in constant demand as an after-dinner speaker and television guest long after his competitive career had ended. His moustache and clipped, self-deprecating humour became something close to a personal brand, and he was widely credited with helping raise Formula 1's public profile in Britain during the 1960s and 70s.
On 29 November 1975, Hill was flying his own light aircraft back from a test session in France when it crashed in thick fog near Arkley Golf Club in Hertfordshire, killing him along with five members of his Embassy Hill team. The loss devastated the small team, which folded shortly afterward, and represented a particularly bitter end for a driver who had survived nearly two decades of frontline motor racing itself.
Before racing became his career, Hill worked as a mechanic and completed engineering-adjacent training, giving him a genuine technical understanding of the cars he drove rather than a purely instinctive feel. He came to motor racing relatively late by the standards of the era, having also served in the Royal Navy, and was in his late twenties before his F1 career properly began — older than most of his rivals when they started.