Goodwood’s energetic Media Centre is always an interesting place to be, meeting old friends from the press corps but for sure the biggest challenge facing reporters is the bewildering level of information generated at this unique and idiosyncratic British motoring event.
It was Sunday 20th June 1993 that Goodwood’s first Festival of Speed started as a speculative notion and now thirty-one years later, the event provides motoring nirvana to thousands of enthusiasts from all over the world.
Whatever their motoring tastes, from the immaculately manicured concours de elegance lawn to high tech, high revving Formula one, to stage rallying, plus so much more packed in between.
It’s now almost impossible to imagine that first taster event, held in front of just 25,000 spectators and based around 16th century Goodwood House, with nothing to the far side of the sinuous 1·86km tarmac track. But today, the vast global sporting and commercial leviathan the event has become offers visitors, capped at 150,000 ticket holders per day, four-days of first-rate entertainment and lavish hospitality, laid out between the trees at Charles Gordon-Lennox, 11th Duke of Richmond’s capacious 120,000-acre Sussex estate.
Held in wet and dry weather, this year’s event celebrated several motoring milestones including the centenary of quintessential British marque MG. This theme also provided Gerry Judah with the basis of his annual sculpture in front of Goodwood house, futuristically depicting an enormous, spoked wheel, bisected across its axis by a horizontal beam with an MGB bookended by MG’s latest all-electric Cyberster roadster. The structure was striking in its simplicity and a kind of surreal, witchcraft-like appearance.
Famous for saluting motorsport heroes, Goodwood honoured the late triple F1 world champion Niki Lauda and also welcomed back NASCAR’s most successful driver, Richard Petty, with over 200 race victories including seven Daytona 500 wins scored during a remarkable career that spanned 1958–1992.
Celebrating a key anniversary was Red Bull Racing. Formed in 2004 from what had formerly been Jaguar Racing, RBR celebrated 20 years of F1 this year after 120 F1 race victories, 6 Constructors and 7 Drivers Championships to date. Sunday saw past and present RBR drivers delight the crowds; Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez, Mark Webber, David Coulthard, Daniel Ricciardo and Christian Klien, together with team principal Christian Horner and departing design genius, Adrian Newey.
Appropriately, Newey’s much-awaited RBR17 Hypercar appeared outside Goodwood’s stable block on Friday. Powered by a naturally aspirated V10 engine weighing less than 150kg, RBR17 produces more than 1,000PS (735kW) on its own but paired with an electric motor, has an overall power output of 1,200PS (883kW), transmitted to the rear wheels via a carbon-fibre, six-speed gearbox. Built exclusively as a 2-seater track day racer for wealthy enthusiasts, only 50 of these cars will be made costing £5M each.
Other personalities freely mixing with the crowd included twice F1 champion and Indy 500 winner Emerson Fittipaldi along with charismatic Italian 1970s Marlboro sponsored F1 star Arturo Merzario, while at the top of the Goodwood estate on the 2.5 km Hannu Mikkola designed rally stage, fans were rubbing shoulders with current WRC protagonists Elfyn Evans (above), Dani Sordo, Haydon Paddon and Toyota Yazoo team principal Jarri-Matti Latvala.
Since 1993 the Goodwood Festival has ended with a top-ten shootout on the main hill and this year the fastest time was delivered by the Ford Supervan, driven by the twice Le Mans winner and Goodwood legend Romain Dumas who hustled the 1,400PS, aero-clad, EV up the hill to beat former American F1 driver Scott Speed in a special Subaru WRX by 2·09 seconds, with James Wallis third in a Porsche 992 GT3 Cup car a further 2 seconds adrift. So ended another successful Goodwood Festival of Speed for another year.
© Images Ken Davies