This year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard was officially opened by the Duke of Richmond driving a prototype of the new Land Rover Defender up the iconic Hill. If you attended this great high speed automotive explosion of an event you may still be recovering from overload, if you didn’t you need some serious catch up and we’re here to help! Here are are highlights, we’ll keep it short.
The central feature of the show was a celebration of 70 years of Aston Martin, Designed by renowned artist Gerry Judah, the sculpture pays tribute to Aston Martin’s 70-year racing legacy at Goodwood. The giant converging steel arcs are crowned by an Aston Martin DBR1, the car in which Sir Stirling Moss won the 1959 RAC Tourist Trophy at Goodwood, thereby sealing the World Sportscar Championship.
What was new / unveiled?
Radical Sportscars’ brand new road-legal sportscar, the Rapture, was unveiled at this year’s show. The 350bhp, six-speed Rapture, which is powered by a reworked, 2261cc Ford EcoBoost engine, has been designed by the British motor racing stalwart to bring extreme racetrack-inspired performance to the road.
Legendary supercar brand, De Tomaso, has been revived with the global debut of its brand new P72 model. As the marque celebrates its 60th anniversary, new Hong Kong-based owners IdealVenture asked the Duke of Richmond to reveal the new model which has been designed to pay homage to De Tomaso’s 1960s P70 prototype racer, built in partnership with Carroll Shelby.
McLaren’s new GT model also had its first public airing at the show. The £163,000, 620bhp grand tourer was announced by the Woking-based car-maker in May but the visitors to Goodwood were the first in the world to see it driving in the flesh.
Audi has launched its most powerful customer race car, the all-new Audi R8 LMS GT2. The R8 LMS GT2 will compete in the all-new FIA GT2 category, set to bridge the gap between the current GT3 and GT4 classes.
What was fast?
The all-electric Volkswagen ID. R has set the fastest ever time up the Goodwood Hillclimb course, completing the legendary climb in 00:41:18sec. It was set by 2 x Le Mans winner Romain Dumas. The state-of-the-art ID.R averaged 101.4mph along the challenging 1.16-mile course.
What was special?
Michael Schumacher’s wife, Corinna, was on hand at the Goodwood FOS to witness the event’s celebration of the seven-time Formula One World Champion in the year he turns 50. 2019 is also the 25th anniversary of his first F1 World Championship, the special tribute saw a grid of cars that spanned Schumacher’s career, including every one of his title-winning Ferraris.
Corinna was joined by Michael’s former Ferrari team principal, Jean Todt, and Luca di Montezemolo, former Chairman of Ferrari, along with the Duke of Richmond. Also on hand were other luminaries who featured strongly in Michael’s career, including Ross Brawn and 1996 World Champion Damon Hill, whose battle with Michael was one of the most iconic of his career.
As well as F1 cars from Jordan, Benetton, Ferrari and Mercedes, the Schumacher collection also included his Van Diemen Formula Ford RF88 in which he finished sixth in the 1988 German FFord Championship, the Mercedes 190E in which he contested four DTM races in 1991 and the Mercedes C11 Group C in which Michael won the season finale in Mexico alongside Jochen Mass.
Monaco Past Masters were celebrated at Goodwood FOS, covering everything from a straight-eight-engined Bugatti Type 35B to the 2009 Brawn BGP 001 shared by Anthony Davidson and Rubens Barichello. Damon Hill piloted the Classic Team Lotus 49B aboard which his father Graham won in the principality in 1968 race. Formula One and IndyCar legend Emerson Fittipaldi, drove the squad’s 72E which Ronnie Peterson steered to victory in the 1974 race.
Other stars out in action included Indy 500 winner Takuma Sato in the ex-Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda MP4/4, David Coulthard aboard the McLaren-Mercedes MP4/15, and the great Sir Jackie Stewart in his son Mark’s Tyrrell-Cosworth 006. Karun Chandok, drove the Williams-Cosworth FW08C which Keke Rosberg guided to victory in the 1983 race.
Finally a vast array of cars campaigned by Waldegård during his long and successful career were either kicking up the dust on the Goodwood Forrest Rally Stage or making appearances on the hillclimb course. These span everything from the wild-looking Porsche 911 in which he was on course to win the 1974 East African Safari Rally, only for a late suspension failure to drop him to second, to one of the more improbable rally weapons – a Mercedes-Benz 450SLC. The tough as nails Swede winning the 1979 Cote d’Ivoire in this five-litre, V8-engined coupé.
There was so much more to see, including Nascars, monster Touring cars and drifters. Thanks to John Retter for this album to snapshot through some of the great highlights of the show. Thanks also to Goodwood Press contributors; Jayson Fong, Nigel Harniman, Drew Gibson, Nick Dungan, Paul Melbert and Toby Adamson for all their great photos.
