The Goodwood Festival of Speed is on the bucket list for most of the motorsport community to attend and this year was no exception.
Although the event was cancelled on Saturday due to high winds, the Festival of Speed continues to be one of the highlights on the motoring calendar where new models are released or previewed, old legends both in the driver and car form come out to play, while the runs up the hillclimb are always spectacular.
GT driver Mavin Kirchhofer set the fastest time of the weekend in McLaren’s new Solus GT hypercar at a time of 45.34s and 149.1mph. Just 1.03s back in second was extreme sports star Travis Pastrana in the Subaru GL Family Huckster built by Vermont SportsCar featuring a 2.3-litre turbocharged flat-four previously used in the Airslayer STI producing 862 bhp.
Third in the hillclimb competition was the McLaren-Cosworth M26 from the 1977 Formula 1 season driven by Michael Lyons.
Others to feature were the famous Calsonic Nissan R32 Skyline GT-R, a Chrysler Viper GTS-R, M-Sport’s current Ford Puma WRC entry and a variety of Porsche models.
Further highlights from the weekend included Australian Formula 1 driver Oscar Piastri joining in McLaren’s 60th anniversary celebrations by driving James Hunt’s 1977 M26-2 in demonstration runs. For the young driver it represented many firsts and the differences between his current MCL 60 he regularly pilots.
Fellow Australians Mike and Jordan Roddy took along the 1985 Bathurst 1000 winning Jaguar XJS driven by John Goss sharing with German Armin Hahne, with both being reunited with the winner at Goodwood.
Recently retired four-time World Drivers’ Championship victor Sebastian Vettel drove two historic Formula 1 cars he currently owns. The first was the Williams FW14B Nigel Mansell used to take the 1992 title, while he switched out for the afternoon events to a McLaren MP4/8 from the next season driven by none other than Brazilian legend Ayrton Senna.
The Festival of Speed not only celebrated McLaren, but Porsche welcomed its 75th anniversary where the statue in front of Goodwood House honoured this by featuring six significant models; the 962, 963, 718/2, 911 Carrera, 911 Sport Classic and 365.
Many Supercars debuted at the event including the Bugatti Bolide, AIM EV Sport 01, Pagani Utopia, McLaren P1 Spider, Ferrari KC23, Czinger 21C, Lamborghini Revuelto, Bentley Batur and plenty more.
