Goodwood Festival Of Speed 2015

It is at this time of the year, that many famous names from the world of motorsport, past and present can be found in the West Sussex countryside only a stones through from Chichester…

Goodwood Festival of Speed first opened its doors in 1993, the concept of Lord March who wanted motorsport to return to the famous Goodwood circuit. Initally unable to get a license to hold a meeting at the historic race track, Lord March put on an event using the ‘hill’ road in his own private estate grounds. 25,000 visited on that first Sunday, 10 years later that a crowd had grown to nearly 160,000 and today in excess of 100,000 can visit each day over the now 3 day event. In 2010 Goodwood added the ‘Moving Motorshow’ to the Thursday, a motorshow for new car buyers who can ‘arrive and drive’ potential new models at the famous venue on the day before the main event starts. All the main motor manufacturers are present with ‘epic’ multi-story stands showcasing models, entertaining customers from Thursday over the course of the whole weekend. Naturally there is a strong motorsport theme on these large stands with motor manufacturers featuring their own competition cars and bikes that can be found competing on the world stage from F1, BSB, WSB, the Dakar to BTCC and Le Mans – fresh from France still with the flies on.

This weekends show hosted some huge names – some of the biggest from the motorsport world including F1’s Nico Rosberg and ‘Ice Man’ Kimi Raikkonen and making his first appearance at the FOS and fresh from the top of the podium at the Dutch TT, 9 time MotoGp World Champion Valentino Rossi. Along with Rossi, legendary bike racers Giacomo Agostini, Phil Reed and Kenny Roberts where part of Yamaha’s celebration of 60 years with demo runs of some of the famous bikes that have secured the company world championships over the decades…..all in that stunning yellow and black colour scheme.

Since its inception, times have been set and beaten in the race to the top of the hill and Nick Heidfeld’s long-standing 41.6-second record continues to be the fastest ever achieved. The F1 driver secured the time in 1999 driving a McLaren MP4/13, however since then modern F1 cars have not been timed…

This weekend the race to the top of the 1.16 mile hill continued with Olly Clark taking victory in a highly developed 780bhp Time Attack Subaru Impreza called the ‘Gobstopper II’ in just 44.91 seconds. Pikes Peak competitors Jean-Phillippe Dayraut was in hot pursuit in the Mitijet Mini Pikes Peak car and Rod Millen in his Toyota Celica took second and third respectively.

This is an event that really needs 2 days to get around with so much to see and do with Rally Stages, the GAS ‘Goodwood Action Sports’ display that includes freestyle motorcross, BMX, trials legend Dougie Lampkin and international trails ace and friend to Paddock42 Alexz Wigg.

Fancy going next year? Our advice, get there early and stroll the paddocks, this event is one of the rare opportunities you get to get up close to some of the greatest racing equipment ever built.

Full results and times from the weekend can be found here.