Page 1 of 1 After campaigning a customer Shadow in 1973 and a bespoke Lola in 1974, the Embassy Hill Racing team decided to take matters into their own hands for the 1975 Formula 1 season. The Hill GH1 was by no means a clean sheet design as it was an evolution of the Lola T370 used in 1974 and also in the opening races of the 1975 season. In fact the first car was briefly dubbed the Lola T371 before it was renamed the Hill GH1.
Employed to create the team's 1975 Grand Prix car was former Lola designer Andy Smallman. The car featured a straightforward aluminium monocoque that was constructed for Embassy Racing by TC Prototypes. Like most of its contemporaries, the T371/GH1 featured the readily available Ford Cosworth DFV engine in combination with a Hewland FGA400 gearbox. The aerodynamics of the car were also conventional with a sharp nose, a tall airbox and a twin element rear wing.
The team started the season with Graham Hill and Rolf Stommelen as the drivers. They struggled in the opening races with the old Lola with as low water mark Hill's failure to qualify for the Monaco Grand Prix; a race he had won five times. It served as a wake-up call and the two-time World Champion retired from driving on the spot. Stommelen had first driven the new GH1 a round earlier at the Spanish Grand Prix. It was a difficult debut as Stommelen had a big accident after a rear wing mount failed and he was unable to race for several months.
Hill's place in the team was taken by the young and very talented Tony Brise, while several drivers were tried for Stommelen's race seat. Eventually, an equally young and talented Alan Jones was picked. They struggled to get much pace out of the new Hill GH1 but eventually managed to score three points, courtesy of a sixth in the Swedish Grand Prix for Brise and a fifth in the German Grand Prix for Jones. Stommelen returned for the final races but he also had a hard time with the car.
Meanwhile, back in the newly established workshop Smallman was hard at work designing a brand new car from scratch. The remarkably low and narrow machine was ready late in 1975 and extensively tested by Brise. Tragedy struck on the way back from one of those tests, at Paul Ricard, when the plane carrying key team members, including Hill himself, Brice and Smallman crashed near a London airfield. It was a sad and abrupt end to the Embassy Hill Racing team and the new Hill GH2 was never raced. Page 1 of 1
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After campaigning a customer Shadow in 1973 and a bespoke Lola in 1974, the Embassy Hill Racing team decided to take matters into their own hands for the 1975 Formula 1 season. The Hill GH1 was by no means a clean sheet design as it was an evolution of the Lola T370 used in 1974 and also in the opening races of the 1975 season. In fact the first car was briefly dubbed the Lola T371 before it was renamed the Hill GH1.