2023 Goodwood Festival of Speed: highlights from 30-year celebration

Vettel got back behind the wheel of Nigel Mansell‘s ‘Red Five’ Williams FW14B from 1992, powered by sustainable fuel, and performed some donuts on its demo run. He also ran Ayrton Senna‘s 1993 McLaren MP4/8A which he coupled with a redesign of the Brazilian’s renowned yellow helmet.

The four-time F1 champion bought the Williams back in 2020, and has made it the face of carbon-neutral fuel, which he is backing to secure racing’s future. He first used the car during a demo run at the 2022 British Grand Prix.

Fellow countryman and former Haas F1 driver Mick Schumacher also took to the wheel of a legendary F1 car – his fathers Mercedes W02 – in a fitting tribute to one of motor sport’s greatest racing families.

Le Mans heroes

Ferrari’s winning team arrived at Goodwood after victory at this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours, its 499P car still caked in La Sarthe dirt and well behind barriers, should anyone inadvertently brush against its paintwork and clean it.

It was sharing the limelight with the other hero of the race: NASCAR’s Garage 56 car, which reverted to type after its circuit-racing prowess, as Jenson Button generated clouds of tyre smoke on the hillclimb.

That’s not to forget the Festival’s tribute to the race’s centenary, which featured several of this year’s competitors as well as winners from the past, including Emanuele Pirro in the three-time winning Matra Simca MS670.

Lambo unveils LMDh monster 

There were plenty of new cars to gawp at, including models from Porsche, Hyundai, Caterham, and Ferrari. One of the most significant may turn out to be Lamborghini’s SC63.

The LMDh Hypercar is intended to race in both the World Endurance Championship and IMSA for the first time in 2024, occupying spots at Le Mans, Daytona 24 Hours and the Sebring 12 Hours, as it competes for top honours for the first time.

After Ferrari‘s success at Le Mans 2023 – returning from a 50-year hiatus to take an historic victory – Lamborghini will aim to follow in its footsteps with a long-awaited debut at the top of sports car racing.

McLaren Solus GT wins the hill climb

The McLaren Solus GT was one of many cars at Goodwood that looked as if it were pulled straight from a video game – in fact the Solus GT actually was – but it was titled the fastest of bunch after topping the hill-climb charts on Sunday afternoon.

In the absence of the electric McMurtry Spéirling, which smashed the Hillclimb record in 39.08sec last year, the McLaren, piloted by Marvin Kirchhofer, claimed victory with a 45.34sec run, crossing the finish line at 149.1mph.

It was almost a second faster and 19mph quicker across the line than Travis Pastrana in the Subaru GL Family Huckster — an 850mph estate.

McLaren’s single-seater hypercar began life as a concept vehicle, contained to the virtual world of sim racing. Last year, the company announced a limited run of £2.5m machines, powered by a naturally aspirated 5.2 litre V10 engine.

It wasn’t the only marque to steal headlines at Goodwood though, as the Rimac Nevera also entered the history books as the fastest production EV (the McMurtry was not road legal) to ever ascend the hill – setting a final time of 49.32sec.

Full Goodwood 2023 hill climb results (top 10): 

Aston Martin unveils new limited edition Valour 

Like many manufacturers, Aston Martin will soon be hopping aboard the EV-express, with its first electric super car due in 2025. But before it bounds into the future, Aston took time to honour the past with the reveal of the limited edition Valour, complete with a 705-hp twin-turbo V-12 engine and a six-speed manual gearbox.

Inspired by retro designs, the Valour is pitched as a tribute to the best of Aston’s racing history under one roof with only 110 examples being produced — in honour of the company’s 11 decades in business.

The crashes

The Goodwood Hill climb is a tricky stretch of tarmac at the best of times  – and the adverse weather conditions of the weekend didn’t make it any easier.

Combine that with drivers determined to demonsrate just what their machinery can do, and it’s all but guaranteed that some will be walking away red-faced.

The festival opened with one high-speed encounter with the bales at the tricky Molecomb; Hyundai’s RN22E meeting barriers in an explosive scattering of straw.

Then there was a lucky escape when a Jaguar MK1 parted company with its left-rear wheel, which bounced into a crowd of spectators, who escaped without serious injury.

Sunday brought a series of mishaps, separately involving a Mercedes-AMG GT, BMW M1, Porsche 911 GT1 and the 1990 Leyton House CG901 – one of Adrian Newey’s first attempts at F1 car design. The latter became unsettled on a straight before spinning into a nearby straw bale in a bizarre incident.