The Best Bits of the 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed

Widely considered a headlining experience on the global motoring calendar, Ian McLaren looks back at the 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed.

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Hosted annually on the three-centuries-old grounds of the Goodwood Estate in West Sussex, England, the steady rise in popularity of the Goodwood Festival of Speed has broadly coincided with looming pressures placed on traditional motor shows and motorsport events. Established in 1993, while the subsequent cancellation of the British Motor Show tempted long-established automotive fans attend the Festival of Speed, the combination of disappointing visitor numbers at other established European-based exhibitions (including the since cancelled Geneva Show) and the prevalence of spectacular online footage from a weekend away in the English countryside, has made Goodwood a must-visit destination for automotive enthusiasts around the world.

The vision of the estate’s custodian, the Duke of Richmond and Gordon, Charles Henry Gordon-Lennox, the Goodwood Festival of Speed now draws the attention of both a global audience and myriad international car brands who relish the opportunity to showcase new wares via a blast up the estate’s 1.86 km-long driveway.

Attracting a crowd of 200 000 visitors between 11 – 14 July, the 2024 running of the Goodwood Festival of Speed was hosted under the theme, “Horseless to Hybrid – Revolutions in Power” and focused on paying homage to 130 years of motorsport.

Motorsport Moments

In the shadow of this year’s MG-inspired central feature, while Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi and Ferrari took turns celebrating their respective landmark motorsport moments, Red Bull Racing used the occasion of its 20^th anniversary in Formula One to run a selection of its most noteworthy machines, line astern, up the hill. The driver line-up included team boss Christian Horner and design guru Adrian Newey, with racing drivers Daniel Ricciardo, Sergio Perez and the current F1 world champion, Max Verstappen.

Other current Formula One drivers on hand at the 2024 event included Yuki Tsunoda who piloted a 1965 Honda RA272 F1 car, Fernando Alonso, who revelled behind the wheel of his Aston Martin Valiant creation, and Ferrari prodigy Oliver Bearman who was handed the keys to a Ferrari SF71H from the 2018 season.

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Not to be outdone, the hill would later in the day come alive with the sound of modern and historic WRC cars, Le Mans competitors, a contingent of NASCAR brutes, MotoGP and 500cc motorcycles and even a South African-built Toyota Hilux Dakar.

Away from the pressures and on-track exploits of their respective careers, it must be noted that every star driver or media personality seen attending the annual Festival of Speed appeared to relish the occasion.

“We’ve got kids, we’ve got granddad here, mum and dad… it’s the best event in the world and I don’t know what’s second, but it’s a long, long way behind,” explained former Formula One racer Mark Webber.

The Timed Hillclimb

While for the preservation of the machinery and their respective reputations, most excursions up the famous hill are taken at a pace aimed at allowing gathered spectators an appropriate glance at the cars, the annual timed Hillclimb event has grown into quite the spectacle of blurred performance. While Nick Heidfeld’s blistering time of 41.6 seconds achieved behind the wheel of a McLaren MP4-13 Formula One car at the 1999 event looked unbeatable for more than two decades, the crowd at the 2022 Festival were left windswept as the all-electric McMurtry Spéirling driven by Max Chilton shaved 2.5 seconds off the record!

In the absence of the McMurtry, the winner of the 2024 timed Hillclimb was decided between four unlikely rivals: a Porsche GT3 Cup car, a pair of Subarus – one sporting active aero flaps and driven by Travis Pastrana – and, somewhat incongruously, a Ford panel van.

This was no ordinary delivery vehicle, though. Piloted by Romain Dumas, the Ford SuperVan 4.2 was built to celebrate its maker’s history of Transit production, while showcasing the potential of an all-electric future. Featuring a heavily modified, wind-tunnel-designed exterior, the van built to conquer hill climbs including Pikes Peak features a three-motor all-wheel-drive powertrain with a total power output of 1 500 kW.

Don’t Wreck It

In any event of this nature, visitors tend to remember two things, the cars that went quickest or put on the best show… and the ones that crashed. While there were a few (nevertheless expensive) small incidents throughout the weekend, none were as dramatic as a one-off Lotus Evija X Prototype veering violently to the right and into the hay bales seconds into the start of its run up the hill.

Keep Off the Grass

There’s every chance the groundsman at Goodwood House is given time off ahead of the Festival of Speed weekend. Indeed, a growing trend appreciated by visitors of all ages sees many drivers pause their respective runs up the hill to perform a burnout at the main house’s courtyard entrance. Buoyed by the crowd and with little room to manoeuvre, even when not in hooligan mode, these antics inevitably result in otherwise immaculately kept grass verges being subjected to some impromptu farming.

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A fan favourite not likely to receive a Christmas card from the groundsman, Kiwi “Mad Mike” Whiddett thrilled 2024 Festival attendees with the debut of his latest drift car creation, a McLaren P1 retrofitted with a high-revving 735 kW triple-rotor, turbocharged rotary engine.

Dubbed the “MadMac”, Whiddett’s tyre-shredding run up the hill celebrated 10 years of drift action being incorporated into the festival’s official programme.

Rally Raid

It’s no easy task tearing yourself away from the action on the main driveway, yet a short walk up the estate’s hill reveals the Festival of Speed’s custom-built rally stage. Here you’ll find altogether less emphasis on hybrid and all-electric technology, as rally cars from the infamous Group B era to the modern all-conquering hyper-hatches set off, rain or sunshine, into the stage. To this end, while the competitors can momentarily disappear into the forest, so much of the appeal of this discipline remains focused on distinct respective exhaust notes – and turbo flutters in the case of the Audi Ur-Quattro.

Spit and Polish

While box-fresh models like the new BMW M5 and X3 SUV, Continental GT, Pagani Epitome, Land Rover Defender Octa and the updated Porsche 911 made their respective public debuts at the 2024 Festival of Speed, so much of this event remains focused on the cars that made us fall in love automobiles in the first place.

The Cartier Style et Luxe lawn area has quickly established itself (alongside Pebble Beach) as one of the premier concours d’elegance events in the world, showcasing some of the finest examples of automotive art available.

Including a celebration of 25 years of the Pagani Zonda, the overall winner of the 2024 Concours d’elegance at the Festival of Speed was a Bugatti Type 57S Corsica.

Bucket List

As live motoring events go, little can touch the annual Goodwood Festival of Speed. From a celebration of the past to a broad acceptance and showcase of the future of mobility, this should be a bucket list item for any motoring enthusiast.

The 2025 Goodwood Festival of Speed will be held 10-13 July 2025.

Find the full feature in the September issue of CAR Magazine.

Looking for your next new or used vehicle? Find it here with CARmag! 

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