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Yes, but one little addition has to be made: nevertheless, Villeneuve was kinda more consistent. What I mean? Villeneuve didn't have as many "ups and downs" like Hill...
For Hill, it was win, win, failure (Nürburg), win, total failure (Barcelona), win, win, technical DNF (not his fault), win, win, failure (Spa), total failure (Monza), kinda failure (Estoril), win.
For example, there were too many unexplicable situations where Villeneuve could fight for the win or for podium and Hill had strange results (4th in Nürburg or even only 5th in Spa, though the latter one was at his fourth attempt regarding the WDC), although the car didn't have any technical issues in those races in Nürburg or Spa (at least, as far as I know). If the car had technical issues in those races, nobody woud've the right to complain much about it. But, as I said before, I guess there wasn't any technical issues in Nürburg or Spa. Those were poor results and Villeneuve was a victory contender or at least a podium contender in those races.
That's why I say that Villeneuve was more consistent because of the fact that Villeneuve was ALWAYS at least on the podium in 1996 when he didn't have DNFs.
Or, another example, Hill was about to have "matchball" in Spa and he couldn't get it. Then he had his first matchball in Monza (and everybody knows what happend), afterwards he had his second matchball in Estoril (he could've won there). At last, in Suzuka he did it at his fourth attempt in mostly more than convincing cars (bar 1994 maybe... that car doesn't stand by far in the same row as the 1993, 1995, 1996 Williams).
So, Villeneuve was even in 1996 better than expected.
And so I think the Hill > Villeneuve > Frentzen > Hill paradoxon doesn't count.
Why?
Villeneuve was much closer to Hill (he could've also very well be WDC in 1996 in his first attempt compared to Hill's fourth attempt) but Frentzen who was beaten by Villeneuve wasn't by far as close as Villeneuve regarding "getting the WDC in 1997" and Hill was of course by far not as good as Frentzen getting the contendership of the 1999 WDC (billions of self induced DNFs all over the season in 1999 for Hill).
So in general, in WDC-possible seasons Hill beat Villeneuve marginally whereas Frentzen and Hill were beaten extremely in 1997 or 1999. So it is probably more like Villeneuve > Frentzen > Hill.
[Sorry once again for the very simple and clumsy grammar or sentence structures.]
Well maybe you should have made an effort to find out. At the Nurburgring, Hill's car suffered from some sort of rear end instability, to the point that Patrick Head was checking the car out at a pitstop to try to determine what went wrong. It dropped him to 11th, so recovery to 4th was pretty good. At Spa he didn't have any technical issues, but got caught out with the pits at the safety car. The team told him to stay out and he had to drive slowly through the Bus Stop, then had to make a pitstop later dropping him right down the field to 13th. Again, recovery to 5th is pretty good considering the team made an error.
So his season is more like win, win, win, technical issues, win, engine failure, spun off DNF, win, win, technical DNF, win, 2nd, team mistake, crash, 2nd, win.
In light of his issues at Spa it's disingenuous to claim he stuffed his chances of "matchball" as you put it. At Monza, Hill, Villeneuve, Schumacher and a host of others made the same mistake with the tyre stacks, so we can't single out Damon for being unlucky with the result of that mistake. Somehow you count it as winning the title at his 4th attempt, even though he couldn't win it at all at Spa. After Estoril, he was 1 point from winning it. As long as Jacques didn't win and he didn't DNF, he would have been champion, and as Murray Walker said, "but he fought!" and won convincingly.
In the entire season of 16 races, Jacques beat Damon twice when neither had problems, and was set to beat him only another 2 times: Melbourne, where nobody's experience counted, and Silverstone. In those two races technical issues settled the fight. Jacques' 1996 was impressive for a rookie, but for all his "consistency" he didn't beat Damon that often. Jacques said in Hungary that it was extra special to finally beat Damon while he was still on the race track.
But then I know you're never going to pass up an opportunity to put Damon down.
