In the pantheon of Formula 1 legends, champions are often remembered as fearless gladiators—men of steel who laugh in the face of death and celebrate victory with champagne showers and wide smiles. But Phil Hill, the first American to ever win the Formula 1 World Championship, was different.

When he stood on the podium at Monza in 1961, having just secured the greatest prize in motorsport, he didn’t smile. He cried. And they weren’t tears of joy. They were tears of profound, gut-wrenching grief.

“I never in my life experienced anything so profoundly mournful,” Hill later confessed.

Two weeks earlier, his teammate and close friend Wolfgang “Taffy” von Trips had been killed in a horrific crash during that very race—a crash that also claimed the lives of 14 spectators. Hill had won the title, but the cost was a pile of twisted metal and bodies.

For decades, Hill carried the weight of that era—a time when death was routine and emotion was considered a weakness. He was a thoughtful, gentle soul trapped in a brutal business. Before his passing in 2008 at the age of 81, Hill finally opened up about the demons that plagued his career. He revealed the five people (and entities) he “hated” most—not enemies on the track, but figures who represented the darkness of a sport he was too human to endure.

1. The Cold “Father”: Enzo Ferrari

Phil Hill joined Ferrari in 1956, seeking more than just a race seat. Like many young men with distant fathers, he looked to the legendary Enzo Ferrari for approval, affection, and guidance.

“I wanted more than anything affection and for him to be a good daddy,” Hill admitted.

But Enzo Ferrari was not a daddy; he was a warlord. He preferred daredevils who were willing to die for the Prancing Horse. Hill, who was cerebral, anxious, and plagued by stress-induced stomach ulcers, was viewed by Enzo as “too modest” and “too quiet”—traits the Commendatore saw as character flaws rather than virtues.

The ultimate betrayal came in 1961. After Hill won the championship amidst the tragedy of Monza, he expected a word of acknowledgment. He got nothing. Enzo didn’t call. He didn’t send a telegram. He didn’t even say thank you.

“That’s when I realized I was never a son to him. I was a tool,” Hill said. The realization broke something inside him, shattering the illusion of the family he had desperately tried to find in Maranello.

2. The Pit Psychologist: Eugenio Dragoni

If Enzo was cold, his successor to the team manager role, Eugenio Dragoni, was cruel. A businessman with no racing background, Dragoni took over in 1962 and immediately targeted Hill.

When the 1962 Ferrari proved to be uncompetitive and prone to mechanical failures, Dragoni didn’t blame the car. He blamed the driver. He launched a systematic campaign of psychological warfare, calling Hill a coward in the press. He weaponized Hill’s grief over von Trips’ death, suggesting that the American had lost his nerve.

Hill recounted a moment at Spa where he overheard Dragoni on the phone to Enzo, sneering, “Your great champion did nothing.”

“He knew I could hear him,” Hill said. “That was the point.”

The stress caused Hill’s physical health to deteriorate rapidly. He lost weight and his ulcers worsened. He eventually left Ferrari not because he couldn’t drive, but because he “couldn’t breathe” under Dragoni’s toxic leadership.

3. The Ghost: Wolfgang von Trips

Wolfgang von Trips was not an enemy; he was a friend. But in death, he became a haunting figure that Hill could not escape.

“I became world champion over the body of my friend,” Hill said. “How do you celebrate that?”

Hill didn’t hate von Trips the person, but he hated what von Trips represented: the ultimate, bloody price of racing. Every time Hill looked at his championship trophy, he saw his dead friend. Every congratulation felt hollow, a reminder that his success was built on a tragedy.

This survivor’s guilt followed Hill for the rest of his life. He couldn’t reconcile his love for the sport with the moral cost it demanded. “I no longer have as much need to race to win,” he said in 1962, his competitive fire doused by grief.

4. The Mirror: Himself

Perhaps the most tragic figure on Hill’s list was himself. Hill was a man at war with his own nature. He was supremely talented at a sport he fundamentally opposed on a moral level.

“I’m in the wrong business,” he once said. “I don’t want to beat anybody. I don’t want to be the big hero. I’m a peace-loving man basically.”

He hated himself for being good at it. He hated that he was part of a system that chewed up young men and spit them out. He suffered chronic anxiety, requiring heavy doses of tranquilizers just to function in the cockpit. He felt trapped by his own talent, compelled to race because it was what he was best at, yet loathing every moment of the “gladiator” lifestyle.

5. The Gatekeeper: Romolo Tavoni

Before Dragoni, there was Romolo Tavoni, the team manager who controlled the keys to Ferrari’s Formula 1 cars. For years, Tavoni pigeonholed Hill as merely a “sports car driver,” refusing to give him a shot at F1 despite his obvious speed.

Tavoni believed Americans lacked the temperament for Grand Prix racing. He kept Hill in endurance racing year after year, giving F1 seats to less talented drivers. It was only after Hill rebelled and drove a private Maserati—and after teammates Peter Collins and Luigi Musso were killed—that a desperate Ferrari finally promoted him.

Hill had to fight for what should have been given, and the resentment toward the man who held him back never fully faded.

The Legacy of a Reluctant Hero

Phil Hill passed away in 2008, having outlived most of his contemporaries. He survived the deadliest era of motorsport not because he was fearless, but because he was afraid. In a time that fetishized bravery, Hill proved that the bravest thing one can do is admit fear and keep going.

He left behind a legacy that is more complex than a simple trophy. He was a champion who showed that empathy isn’t weakness, and that questioning the cost of victory isn’t cowardice.

“Some people are too good for the world they’re in,” the retrospective concludes. Phil Hill was one of them—a gentle man who conquered a violent world, and carried the scars of it until the very end.