History & Team Record

Multiple World Champion Graham Hill formed his own team in late 1972 and secured sponsorship from Imperial Tobacco in the form of their Embassy cigarette brand. The team debuted at the fourth round of the 1973 season with a single Shadow built from parts by the team. The car was not reliable (or fast) and finished the year without scoring a point.

For 1974 Hill commissioned Lola to design an F1 car based on their F5000 chassis, which the team assembled. They switched to Firestone tyres and expanded to running two cars, first for rookie Guy Edwards until he was sidelined with a broken wrist, then veterens Peter Gethin and Rolf Strommelen. Again the car was slow though more reliable and Hill scored the teams first (and only) point of the season at the Swedish GP, finishing a lap down in sixth.

The team developed the chassis for 1975 with the T371 morphing into the Hill GH1 by the third round, however tragedy struck at round four in Spanish when Strommelen's rear wing collapsed and the car crashed over the barriers killing four spectators, as well as injuring the German. Following the accident Hill failed to qualify for his favorite race, Monaco and he decided to retire from driving. Highly regarded young Brit Tony Brise was brought in to replace him, while Australian Alan Jones stood in for Strommelen. Both did reasonably well as Brise scored a point in Sweden and Jones took two points in Germany before handing the car back to Strommelen.

Things looked set to improve with Brise driving the new Andy Smallman designed GH2-Ford DFV for 1976, but while returning to England from a winter test session at Paul Ricard in France, the team plane crashed in fog near Elstree killing everyone onboard. The Piper Aztec (piloted by Graham Hill) was carrying Brise, Smallman, team manager Ray Brimble and mechanics Terry Richards and Tony Alcock, which wiped out all but three members of the outfit leading to the folding of the team shortly afterwards. The GH2 was never raced and sent to the British National Motor Museum in Beaulieu.

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