Two-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Romain Dumas took Ford’s all-electric SuperVan to victory in a truncated Goodwood Festival of Speed Shootout.
Dumas lit up Goodwood’s famous 1.16-mile hillclimb course to post a 43.987s effort behind the wheel of the Ford SuperVan 4.2, which can generate 1400 horsepower from its four electric motors.
The time managed to eclipse former Formula 1 driver Scott Speed, who had laid down a 46.075s effort, piloting a modified 670 horsepower Subaru WRX - Project Midnight, which had been created specifically for this event.
Dumas’ victory joins previous Goodwood Shootout triumphs in 2018 and 2019 driving the electric Volkswagen I.D. R.
“I don’t know if it was unbelievable but two corners from the end, I was quite close to the wall, so I was pushing quite hard I have to say,” said Dumas, who took his fifth outright Pikes Peak hillclimb victory aboard Ford's F-150 Lightning SuperTruck electric demonstrator last month.
“It was a lot of fun like always and Goodwood is just amazing.
“It is quite impressive to go at this speed through a small field but again it was a lot of fun. I’m quite happy that we won it.
“I didn’t know how fast Scott had gone on his run, but I knew that everyone was very motivated, and we had good competition at this level. We all want to win.”
Porsche Carrera Cup GB driver James Wallis completed the podium after posting a 48.047s behind the wheel of a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car.
Raphael Astier (Alpine A110 Pikes Peak) was fourth, ahead of Chris Ward (Czinger 21C) and British Touring Car Championship title contender Jake Hill (Nissan Skyline GTR R32).
The shootout was punctuated by three incidents that brought out the red flags.
Annette Mason, driving a Ferrari 512BB LM, clipped the haybales on the exit of the Flint Wall, which caused steering damage that required a recovery truck to remove the car.
The red flags flew again shortly after the incident when Piero Longhi found the haybales at the first turn behind the wheel of the Glickenhaus SCG004C.
Longhi clipped the grass on the inside of the corner, which spat the GT car into the haybales, causing significant damage to the SCG004C’s front end.
Travis Pastrana’s spectacular run in the Subaru GL Wagon ‘Huckster’ also came to an early halt after running wide at Molecomb corner.
The popular American extreme sports and rally driver set the fastest opening sector time but understeered at Molecomb corner and ploughed into the straw bales.
