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This article first appeared in GP Racing magazine.
As a rule of thumb, retired racing drivers are better company than their active counterparts, not least because they can speak with impunity and tell the real story, rather than the sanitised guff which routinely insults our intelligence today.
Take Phil Hill, for example, whose career ended on the highest of notes. After taking victory in the BOAC 500 at Brands Hatch in 1967, driving for Chaparral, Hill never raced again, although, typically, he never made any formal announcement of his retirement.
It is doubtful that anyone more intelligent ever stepped into a racing car, and certainly - despite excelling at circuits such as Spa-Francorchamps and the Nurburgring - Hill was always mindful of the risks in a sport then infinitely perilous. In the course of a long career, he somehow never once hurt himself, but over time lost many friends.
