Goodwood Festival of Speed

The tradition & historical record

The Goodwood Festival of Speed is a British annual motorsports festival featuring modern and historic motor racing vehicles taking part in a hillclimb and other events, held at Goodwood, West Sussex, England, in late June or early July. The event is scheduled to avoid clashing with the Formula One season, enabling fans to see F1 machines as well as cars and motorbikes from motor racing history. In the early years of the Festival, which started in 1993, tens of thousands attended over the weekend. As of 2014, it attracted crowds of around 100,000 on each of the three days it was held. A record crowd of 158,000 attended in 2003, before an advance-ticket-only admission policy came into force; attendance was subsequently capped at 150,000. ¹

The Goodwood Festival of Speed was founded in 1993 by the then Lord March (now the Duke of Richmond) in order to bring motor racing back to the Goodwood estate – a location steeped in British motor racing history. Shortly after taking over the estate in the early 1990s, Lord March wanted to bring back motor racing to Goodwood Circuit, but did not have the necessary permit to host a race there. Therefore, he instead hosted it on his own grounds. With a small selection of entrants made up of invited historic vehicles, the first event that took place on Sunday 20 June proved to be a success, taking in a crowd of 25,000 despite a date clash with the 24 Hours of Le Mans that year. The first driver to tackle the event's hillclimb course was Sally Mason-Styrron, in her Ferrari 166 MM Barchetta. After the second event also clashed with Le Mans, Lord March ensured that future events would never clash with either Le Mans or Formula One races. In 1994, Saturday was added, making it a weekend event. In 1996, Friday was added, making it a three-day event. In 2010, the Moving Motor Show was added on the Thursday. The 2020 event was scheduled for July 9–12, but it was cancelled then later run in October combined with other events at Goodwood Motor Circuit. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was held without spectators but streamed online and shown on terrestrial TV. The event was modified to incorporate historic cars from the Revival, rally/sprint cars from the Member's Meeting, and an attempt to set a new track record. The 2021 event returned to its full spectator capacity and to its original location and was held from July 8-11. The organisers cancelled the Saturday schedule of the 2023 festival due to severe weather warnings. ¹

The event is classified as a hillclimb and visitors are accorded close access to that part of the track. The 1,890 metres (1.17 miles), 9-turn track climbs 92.7 metres (304 ft), an average gradient of 4.9%. Its record time was set in 2022 by Max Chilton in an electric McMurtry Spéirling at 39.081 seconds. The record was held for 20 years by a Formula 1 (F1) car, set at 41.6 seconds by Nick Heidfeld in 1999 in a McLaren MP4/13 – the then-reigning F1 World Constructors' Champion car. While F1 cars ran until 2023, they did not break the 1999 record. For safety reasons F1 cars can no longer use tyre warmers or do official timed runs so instead perform demonstrations. The record time (but not the record) was already lowered in 2019 to 39.90 seconds in practice by the Volkswagen ID.R prototype electric race car, driven by Romain Dumas. The Alpine Alpenglow Hy6 hydrogen car was refuelled by Fuel Cell Systems at the Goodwood Festival of Speed 2025, marking a significant moment in the demonstration of hydrogen-powered vehicles in motorsport. ¹

From 2000 to 2004 the Soapbox Challenge was a downhill race for gravity-powered cars. Starting from just below the hill-climb finish line, to a finish line in front of the house. It included entries from Cosworth, Prodrive, and other top companies, with some famous riders/drivers piloting them, including Barry Sheene. However, there were frequent accidents. Despite an official cap on the cost of cars, the unofficial costs were becoming too high, so it did not return in 2005. However, it did return in 2013. Companies such as Bentley and McLaren competed. ¹

From 2005 to present there has been a demonstration area for the rally cars at the top of the hill. Ever since its inception Southern Car Club have been entrusted with the organization of the rally stage, held under a Motorsport UK permit. Initially, in 2005, an existing track through the forest was widened, and the rally cars ran down through the forest, turned about on the tarmac section just outside the wood, and returned up the same track. This meant that the cars could only run one-at-a-time. In 2006, a full forest stage was introduced, designed by Hannu Mikkola as a complete circuit, with a separate start and finish line at the top of the wood. This allowed the cars to start at timed intervals, allowing many more cars to run. ¹

Since 2000, the Festival has hosted the Supercar Paddock for road-going supercars. Since 2014 cars could opt to do a timed run. It is now common for specialty car manufacturers to show off their latest sports model, including newly released mass-produced sports models and working concept models. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Goodwood Festival of Speed”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Goodwood Festival of Speed is British annual motorsport event, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 2 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²