This year he has become President of the British Racing Drivers’ Club and is fighting to keep the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

We sent Trackside’s Keith Collantine to meet the F1 legend at the launch of The Great Design Race.

The Design Museum in Shad Thames, London is dental surgery white. Last year’s Renault R25 Formula One car sits on a plinth in the middle of the room.

And from behind that, dressed in jeans and a jacket, with waves of greying hair and a look of fixed concentration, Damon Hill approaches.

I’m trying to keep my cool here. As a chubby twelve-year-old I screamed at the TV when Michael Schumacher crashed into Hill in the final race of the 1994 season, denying Hill the title. Since then he’s been a bit of a hero of mine, in that plucky British underdog kind of way.

But no time for hero-worship today – the Design Museum have invited us here for a preview of The Great Design Race, a showcase of great Formula One engineering.

There’s no driver I would more like to talk to about F1 technology than Hill. He’s a self-confessed technophile and has a great knowledge of the history of the sport. His dad was Graham Hill, after all.

And he’s very enthusiastic about the tradition of British excellence in Formula One. “We are very good at dreaming up design solutions,” he tells me. “There are few countries around the world apart from Britain that are as good – maybe Germany, Italy and Japan.”

That’s certainly clear enough from the exhibits. One great British breakthrough in F1 was ground effects, pioneered by Colin Chapman on the Lotus 79 which sits in the entrance to the show.

Another is the Williams-Renault FW14B which Hill himself tested. This car perfected the troublesome technology of active suspension, where the springs and ride height were constantly being changed by computer.

When it failed – as it often did in testing – it could cause enormous high-speed crashes. But Hill says he got a kick out of that.

 “I used to like the thrill! And I always trusted the engineers. If there was a doubt they would always say, ‘look, just be a bit careful with this’.

“From time to time weird things would happen and you’d have a shock or a crash or whatever. But it was great fun.”

Active suspension and a host of other technologies are now banned from F1. Damon regrets the stifling of innovation, but thinks more basic cars would be better for the sport.

He agrees with the many fans who would like to see traction control banned to create more of a challenge for the driver – even though he helped develop it.

“I’d like a wider car with slick tyres and softer suspension. These things (he points at the 2005 Renault) are not as nice to drive as the wider cars were.”

Most of all he dislikes the grooved tyres introduced during his F1 career in 1998 to keep speeds down. “They are a disaster,” he says.

“There’s not one driver I know who likes them. Grooved tyres have helped reduce speeds but they have not improved overtaking.”

It’s refreshing to hear someone who appreciates F1 technology admitting that it would be better for the sport if more attention were paid to improving the racing.

The interview is wrapped up as quickly as it began and Hill says his goodbyes. I walk past the Renault with its grooved tyres, traction control and complicated aerodynamics, for one last lingering look at that Lotus.