Damon Hill is heading back to Grove — not with a helmet under his arm this time, but with a title that still carries weight around the Williams campus.
The 1996 world champion has been appointed an official ambassador for Atlassian Williams Racing ahead of the 2026 season, joining an increasingly deliberate roster of familiar faces the team is leaning on as it tries to marry modern momentum with the kind of heritage sponsors still love to buy into. Hill announced the move on social media with the sort of line that doesn’t need much dressing up: he’s “back where I belong”.
It’s a neat fit. Williams has been careful in recent seasons not to overplay the nostalgia card, but it’s also been smart about who it puts in the shop window. Hill isn’t just a champion from the archives; he’s a Williams champion, forged in an era when the team set standards rather than chased them. In an F1 paddock where “brand” can feel like a hollow word, Hill’s name still lands with a certain authority — particularly for a team rebuilding its identity as much as its results.
Hill’s Williams story is well-trodden but worth remembering for what it represents. He spent two years as a reserve before stepping into a race seat in 1993 alongside Alain Prost, a partnership that ended with Prost’s final title. Then came 1994: a season-long feud with Michael Schumacher, decided in Adelaide by contact that remains a flashpoint to this day, both cars out and the championship gone. Hill returned in 1995 to finish runner-up again, before finally getting his moment in 1996 in a season of relentless efficiency, eight wins, and the championship sealed at Suzuka.
That title year also makes the current ambassador line-up quietly interesting. Jacques Villeneuve — Hill’s team-mate in that 1996 campaign, and Williams’ 1997 world champion — remains in the role for a second season. So, too, does Jamie Chadwick, whose presence speaks to where the sport is actually moving, not just where it’s been. Chadwick will continue to combine ambassador duties with an advisory role for Williams’ new F1 Academy recruit, Jade Jacquet, alongside her own racing commitments after a successful European Le Mans Series LMP2 campaign last year that included three victories.
The timing of Hill’s return also lands in the wake of Jenson Button stepping away from his Williams ambassador position to take up a similar role at Aston Martin. That kind of ambassadorial musical chairs can look cosmetic from the outside, but within teams it’s rarely random. These roles are as much about access and representation as they are about nostalgia: corporate hospitality, sponsor confidence, internal culture, and the occasional well-placed word from someone who’s been through the pressure-cooker and come out with a trophy.
Hill, for his part, framed it as a personal homecoming.
“Williams is truly a special place for me and where some of the defining moments of my career took place,” he said. “I feel incredibly lucky to have been part of this sport and to have achieved what I did, and returning as an Ambassador is a real privilege. It’s an opportunity to celebrate the team’s history and help to support its legacy and future.”
Team principal James Vowles leaned into the same theme — and, tellingly, into what Hill symbolises rather than what he’ll tangibly do day-to-day.
“It’s an honour to welcome Damon back to Atlassian Williams F1 Team as an Ambassador,” Vowles said. “Few individuals represent this team quite like him. Damon played a defining role in one of the most successful eras in our history, becoming a World Champion with Williams and leaving a legacy that continues to inspire the team today.”
That word — “inspire” — can read like PR gloss, but it matters in a team trying to build a new baseline. F1 is full of clever people with laptops and simulation tools; it’s thinner on institutional belief when the results have been hard to come by. A champion walking back through the doors doesn’t make a car faster, but it can sharpen a sense of what “good” is supposed to look like, and it gives a team a story to tell that isn’t just about patience and process.
Williams is, in effect, assembling a bridge: Hill and Villeneuve as living proof of what the team once was at its peak, Chadwick as a signpost for what it wants to be in a sport that’s finally taking its own talent pipelines more seriously. In 2026 — with a new season ahead and the paddock’s attention constantly split between performance and perception — that kind of joined-up messaging is no small thing.
And if Hill’s “back where I belong” line sounded sentimental, it also sounded pointed. Williams, too, is trying to get back to where it believes it belongs. Having Damon Hill wearing the badge again won’t solve that on its own. But it does remind everyone — inside the garage and outside it — that this team has stood on the top step before, and it isn’t embarrassed to say so.
