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Blue Volkswagen ID.R running on the straw-bale-lined Goodwood Hill during the 2019 Festival of Speed.

HISTORY · GOODWOOD FESTIVAL OF SPEED

Goodwood’s driveway.
An extraordinary meeting place.

How a plan to bring motorsport back to an estate became a celebration of racing’s past, present and possibilities.

Photo: Setan99 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

By Does Your Duck Quack

At a glance

The Festival of Speed began on 19–20 June 1993 as part of a plan to restore motorsport to Goodwood. Cars and motorcycles climbed the estate roads, bringing famous machines and the people associated with them into unusually close proximity. The Motor Circuit’s return came later, with the Revival in 1998. The first weekend The wider Goodwood story

The Festival’s central sporting stage is the 1.16-mile Hill. Some runs are demonstrations; others are timed attempts with a competitive result. That distinction explains how an emotional reunion with an old racing car and an uncompromising record attempt can both belong to the event. The timed competition

  • First Festival: June 1993.
  • Original aim: help bring racing back to Goodwood.
  • Central route: the Hill beside Goodwood House.
  • Record through the end of 2025: Max Chilton, McMurtry Spéirling, 39.08 seconds in the 2022 Sunday Shootout. The record run The 2025 account

A short Hill run makes the start especially consequential. The driver has to accelerate hard, settle the car and prepare for the next bend in quick succession. On a replay, follow the transitions between those tasks. A smooth-looking climb can contain constant small adjustments, and watching one section repeatedly makes them easier to recognise than trying to absorb every unfamiliar car at once.

For a first visit, start by choosing the kind of action you want to understand. A timed run rewards attention to the clock; a historic demonstration may reward recognising a driver, an engine note or a car’s significance. The programme contains several ways to enjoy motorsport.

Origins

The modern Festival grew out of a much older ambition. In the early 1990s, the then Earl of March wanted to reopen the Motor Circuit created by his grandfather, Freddie March, the ninth Duke of Richmond. The circuit had stopped contemporary racing in 1966, and restoring competition there was proving complicated. A hillclimb on the estate roads offered an achievable first step. The founder’s account

Goodwood already had a precedent for using the drive competitively. Freddie March hosted a private hillclimb for Lancia enthusiasts in 1936. The pre-war beginning The Festival therefore reworked an existing connection between the estate and motoring, while giving it a much broader public purpose.

The decision to stage the first Festival was made in October 1992, leaving eight months before the intended June event. Stirling Moss and John Surtees agreed to become its first patrons; Damon Hill joined them later. Surtees’s involvement helped assemble the motorcycle entry. The planning and patrons Bringing bikes into the conception from the outset gave the gathering a wider sporting identity than a display of racing cars alone.

The first weekend looked much less elaborate than the modern Festival. A simple start gantry, straw bales, marquees and a temporary bridge helped turn the park into an event venue. The central display outside the house was an Aston Martin DB7 on a plinth. The original setting These details make the beginning easy to picture: much of what later became familiar was still being improvised around a new idea.

Willie Green, driving a Surtees TS20, set the fastest time of that inaugural event. The first competitive landmark Speed was part of the attraction from the beginning, alongside the opportunity to see machinery and personalities gathered in one place. The combination supplied a reason to return even when the field of cars changed.

The opening weekend also carried tragedy. Motorcyclist Chas Guy was fatally injured after the finish during Saturday’s running. The founder’s recollection includes the accident alongside the success of the gathering. The opening weekend remembered It is part of the event’s history, and a reminder of the seriousness of operating racing machinery within a festive setting.

How the event has changed

The Festival developed several centres of attention around the Hill. Gerry Judah received his first commission for a Central Feature in 1997, when Ferrari was the featured marque. The sculptures became a changing landmark outside Goodwood House, linking the design of the event to the histories of the manufacturers it celebrated. The Central Feature’s origins

That progression matters when comparing photographs. The modest DB7 display of 1993 and the later structural sculptures belong to the same location, but represent different stages in the Festival’s ambition. The house supplies a familiar backdrop while the object in front of it gives each year a particular identity.

The Forest Rally Stage arrived in 2005, adding loose-surface action in the woodland at the top of the estate. Rally champion Hannu Mikkola was central to the stage’s design. The rally course This added another driving language to the weekend: a car moving around on a forest surface creates a different spectacle from a car placing its wheels precisely between the Hill’s edges.

The Moving Motor Show added another strand from 2010, using Thursday to introduce new road cars and offer driving experiences on the Hill. The road-car programme This connected competition machinery with cars being launched to the public. A visitor could see the relationship between an engineering idea developed for performance and the way manufacturers presented it in a vehicle intended for the road. The Festival’s subject had expanded from remembering racing to examining the wider car world around it.

Future Lab joined the event in 2017, introducing exhibits about emerging science and transport technology. Its first-year programme included subjects beyond conventional racing machinery. The 2017 addition That extension made sense within a gathering already comparing technical ideas across generations. A visitor could explore how an old competition car worked, then encounter a proposal for what might come next.

The Festival’s calendar has also recorded disruption. The 2020 edition was cancelled during the Covid-19 pandemic, together with that year’s Revival. The 2020 announcement In 2023, forecast high winds led to the cancellation of Saturday 15 July; running resumed on Sunday. The Saturday decision The weekend’s return

These interruptions belong to a history usually told through growth and famous appearances. The event relies on temporary facilities, public access and a programme spread across an open landscape. Looking at a completed highlight film can hide how much organisation is required to make those different parts operate together.

By 2025, the Formula 1 World Championship’s 75th anniversary supplied a particularly large theme, with more than 100 F1 cars in attendance. The 2025 celebration The Festival had become a place where the scale of a sporting history could be presented physically, with machinery from several eras gathered around the same short climb.

Great runs and moments

1999: Heidfeld sets a lasting reference

Nick Heidfeld’s 41.60-second run in a McLaren MP4/13 became the Festival’s defining Formula 1 benchmark. Goodwood’s contemporary account of the later Volkswagen challenge identifies the 1999 time as the Sunday Shootout record that still stood in 2019. The record’s context The short duration makes it an easy performance to revisit in full.

Watch the steering corrections and the amount of road being used. The car’s speed feels especially striking because the route retains the visual scale of an estate drive. The interest lies in seeing familiar racing capability applied to a place with very little spare room.

2019: Volkswagen changes the outright number

Romain Dumas took the electric Volkswagen ID.R up the Hill in 39.90 seconds on Saturday 6 July 2019. That was the fastest timed climb Goodwood had then recorded. Wetter conditions on Sunday produced a winning Shootout run of 42.32 seconds. The Saturday record The Sunday classification

The two times are a useful introduction to how Festival records work. The fastest run of a weekend and the run that wins the final competition can be different performances. Carry both the date and the session with the number, and the apparent contradiction disappears.

The ID.R also changed the sound and shape of the record conversation. Looking at its run beside Heidfeld’s shows two different approaches to the same compact problem: accelerate, find the available grip and maintain speed through a succession of constraints.

2022: Chilton reaches 39.08

Max Chilton won the 2022 Sunday Shootout in the all-electric McMurtry Spéirling, stopping the clock at 39.08 seconds. The run surpassed both Heidfeld’s Sunday benchmark and Dumas’s faster 2019 climb. The full achievement The official results put the McMurtry ahead of Richard Lietz’s Porsche 718 GT4 ePerformance and Ben Mitchell’s March-BMW 782. The 2022 results

The Spéirling’s fan system could generate two tonnes of downforce while the car was stationary. How the fan car worked The useful idea for a newcomer is that its grip-producing system did not depend on first reaching high speed. That helps explain why this particular design made such an impression on a course beginning from rest and demanding rapid changes of direction. Listening to the fan adds a second way of recognising what makes the car unusual.

The small fan car makes a remarkable viewing comparison with a conventional single-seater. Follow its changes of direction rather than waiting for the final figure. The time becomes more meaningful when you have seen how quickly the car resolves each part of the route.

2022: Rainey returns to a familiar machine

Wayne Rainey rode his 1992 championship-winning Yamaha YZR500 at the same Festival. The bike’s controls had been adapted, moving the rear brake and gearshift to the handlebars. Fellow champions Mick Doohan, Kevin Schwantz and Kenny Roberts joined him on the Hill. The motorcycle reunion

This moment gives the Festival a different emotional centre from the record attempt. The achievement is in the reunion between a person and a machine with a shared history. Knowing what you are watching changes the significance of the journey even when no competitive time is attached to it.

2023: the founding car returns

For the Festival’s 30th anniversary, the Duke of Richmond opened the event in the Jaguar D-type used for the inaugural edition in 1993. The anniversary opening It was a compact way of making the event’s own past visible among all the other histories it celebrates.

Anniversaries work best when attached to something physical. A car returning to the same landscape lets the viewer compare the scale of the gathering around it with the early photographs, while the original idea remains recognisable.

2025: Dumas wins in the Supertruck

Dumas won the 2025 Shoot-Out in the Ford Supertruck with a time of 43.22 seconds, ahead of Scott Speed’s Subaru Project Midnight on 45.03. The final results The winning vehicle’s proportions offered another unexpected answer to the problem set by the Hill.

A Festival victory is an achievement within that edition’s competition. The appeal of this replay is watching an unusual machine being made effective through the corners, then seeing where its performance sits among a varied field. The existing outright record provides one reference; the rivals taking part that afternoon provide another.

The British story on the Hill

British racing history helped give the Festival credibility at its beginning. Surtees organised the motorcycle content, while Moss lent his support as a founding patron even though a clashing engagement prevented him attending the first edition. The original patrons Their involvement connected the new gathering with people whose careers already belonged to Goodwood’s earlier story.

Surtees’s connection went back to his move into car racing. He finished second to Jim Clark in a Formula Junior race at Goodwood in March 1960, before becoming a Festival patron in 1993. Two stages of the same association That span helps explain the significance of his support. He brought a personal memory of the circuit’s competitive life, along with a reputation established across two and four wheels, to the new gathering on the estate.

Nigel Mansell’s 2022 appearance brought another generation’s memories into the park. He drove his 1992 championship-winning Williams FW14B, reunited with the car for the first time in 30 years. Mansell’s return to the Williams For supporters who remembered that season, recognising the red number five supplied an immediate connection before any explanation was needed.

The value for a younger fan is different but just as useful. A famous car ceases to be a still photograph when it starts, changes gear and responds to its driver. The Festival can supply that first physical impression of an era you only know through recordings.

Chilton’s 2022 record added a British driver to the Hill’s most prominent numerical milestone. The same results list placed Jenson Button in a First Corner FC1x and Justin Law in a Jaguar XJR12D among the timed competitors. British names in the results Familiar drivers can therefore lead a visitor towards machinery outside the championship with which they are usually associated.

In 2025, Mansell and Jackie Stewart joined Alain Prost, Emerson Fittipaldi, Jacques Villeneuve, Mario Andretti and Mika Häkkinen for a champions’ gathering on the house balcony. The anniversary gathering The British connection was one part of a much wider assembly. That is central to the Festival’s appeal for a UK supporter: a journey to West Sussex can open several different chapters of world motorsport at once.

Records and numbers

The following record picture is fixed at the end of 2025. A timed Hill run, a Sunday Shootout result and a demonstration describe different things.

Run or measureFigure and context
Hill length1.16 miles. Course description
Heidfeld, 199941.60 seconds in the McLaren MP4/13; the long-standing Sunday benchmark. Record context
Dumas, Saturday 201939.90 seconds in the Volkswagen ID.R; a timed qualifying run. Contemporary confirmation
Dumas, Sunday 201942.32 seconds; the winning Shootout time. Official result
Chilton, Sunday 202239.08 seconds in the McMurtry Spéirling; outright record through this cutoff. Record run 2025 account
Dumas, Sunday 202543.22 seconds in the Ford Supertruck; that edition’s winning time. Final classification

Conditions and the purpose of a run matter when comparing these figures. A demonstration can be unforgettable because of who is driving or what the machine represents. Its place in the story comes from that context rather than a position in this table.

A timeline

Use the sequence to choose a few contrasting films: a benchmark climb, an anniversary demonstration and a rally-stage run. Together they show how one event developed several distinct ways of presenting motorsport.

See it for yourself

Begin with the Festival of Speed visitor guide. Decide which parts of the event matter most to you before choosing a day and a viewing plan. The Hill, paddocks and woodland action can each occupy much more time than a quick glance at the map suggests.

If the record runs drew you in, watch an onboard film and identify one section you want to study closely. The approach to Molecomb and the route past the Flint Wall reward understanding where the driver is trying to place the car. Compare that interest with the actual sightline described for any ticketed viewing area.

The grandstand and general admission guide helps you weigh a reserved view against moving between attractions. Read the paddock-access guide alongside the current event’s ticket details if seeing the machinery up close is a priority.

For a family trip, motorsport with kids can help you build a manageable day around a few strong interests. Leave time to stop and examine a car as well as watch it pass. Comparing the machines standing still can make their very different behaviour on the Hill easier to understand.

The first race weekend kit list covers practical preparation. If the older Motor Circuit story caught your attention, continue with Goodwood Revival history and its visitor guide. The two events share an estate and a family story, while offering distinct settings in which to watch the cars work.

FAQs

When did the Festival of Speed begin?

The first Festival of Speed took place on 19–20 June 1993. It was part of the then Earl of March’s ambition to bring motorsport back to Goodwood.

Is the Festival of Speed held on the Goodwood Motor Circuit?

Its central Hillclimb uses estate roads beside Goodwood House. The Revival and Members’ Meeting race on the separate Goodwood Motor Circuit.

Who held the Goodwood Hill record at the end of 2025?

Max Chilton held the outright record with 39.08 seconds in the McMurtry Spéirling, set during the Sunday Shootout in 2022.

Why do the 2019 Volkswagen times differ?

Romain Dumas recorded 39.90 seconds in a Saturday timed run. His winning Sunday Shootout run in wetter conditions took 42.32 seconds. The session belongs with the time.

Is every run at the Festival a competitive attempt?

No. The programme includes demonstrations and celebrations alongside timed competition. A driver reunited with a historic machine may be taking part to mark its story, while Shootout competitors pursue a classified result.

Sources