Queen Elizabeth's second son, who serves as a special representative for international trade and investment, roared around the revamped Silverstone circuit in a two-seater grand prix car driven by the 1996 F1 champion.
He had earlier cut a ribbon on the redesigned layout and accepted honorary membership of the British Racing Drivers' Club that owns Silverstone and includes all of the country's champions and top racers.
"It's a great honor," the Duke of York told Reuters in an interview after changing back out of his white racing overalls into the more familiar business suit and gleaming shoes.
"I don't have any qualifications and I still have no qualifications because all I did was sit passively in the back of the car and hang on.
"It was quite an extraordinary experience. I likened it to probably sitting in the back seat of a Tornado (fighter jet) at low level over the Scottish highlands.
"It's that sort of experience because you are being thrown about in the back and you are allowing somebody else to do the driving." Hill, the BRDC president who won the British Grand Prix in 1994 with Williams, had not previously driven the new layout and was understandably cautious until sure of the lines.
"There were some bits that were slightly surprising," said his royal passenger, who appeared both exhilarated and slightly stunned as he stepped out of the machine.
"I was expecting the pull of the brakes and where the braking comes, but by far the most exciting bit was the Becketts' complex on the far side of the circuit which is just remarkable.
"I got four laps out of it and Damon hadn't driven the circuit so the first lap was sort of a warm-up, the second one got faster and the third one got even faster and you began to feel it." The Prince, who has attended previous grands prix, recognized that he was no lifelong fan of motor racing even though he was presented with a driveable battery-powered toy Aston Martin at the age of four.
Cars, he said, were to him "more a method of being able to get from A to B." On a more businesslike note, the 50-year-old was eager to fly the flag for high-performance engineering in a country that is home to a majority of the F1 teams.
"The fact that Silverstone wants to turn itself into not only being a world class sporting facility but also into a world class industrial facility, encouraging high performance engineering, is hugely important to the UK," he said.
"I am fully behind it and we've had a long meeting this morning discussing the possibilities, the capabilities and the interest."
