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Autosport
Autosport
Marcus Pye

Ten on-track highlights for this year's Goodwood Revival

The Goodwood Revival is one of the highlights of the historic racing calendar - and this year's event is set to be no different. 

Important anniversaries will be marked and major achievements celebrated at the famous Sussex venue with a plethora of star names and cars in action.

The event will go ahead as planned, but will feature several tributes to Queen Elizabeth II. Circuit staff will wear black armbands and visitors are encouraged to do the same, while a special film of the Queen at Goodwood will be shown on big screens.

Here are 10 highlights to look forward to from this year's on-track action.

1. Prancing Horses honour Ferrari's racing legacy

'Grant Piston Ring Special' Ferrari is set to return to Goodwood (Photo by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images)

Goodwood’s celebration of Enzo Ferrari’s marque’s 75th anniversary, which started at the Festival of Speed in July, brings a priceless gathering of cars to the motor circuit each day, respecting its contemporary 1966 timeline. From a trio of 166 MM Barchettas to a 330 P3/412P, the cavalcade leaves no gaps. Some are racing, including Lawrence Auriana’s sensational ex-John Surtees/Lorenzo Bandini/Pedro Rodriguez 1965 1512 ‘0008’, star among the single-seaters, in which 2018 victor Joe Colasacco returns to the Glover Trophy fray.

From the Louwman Museum in Holland comes the 1952 375 ‘Grant Piston Ring Special’ – Johnnie Parsons’ Indianapolis 500 contender – to join a 500/625A, Lancia-Ferrari D50A, 375MM, 500 Mondial, 750 Monzas and Testa Rossas. There are front-engined 246 Dinos in Formula 1 and sportscar forms from the early 1960s, and one of the magnificently recreated 156 sharknoses represents Phil Hill’s 1961 world championship triumph. Plus groups of 250 GT Berlinettas (SWBs) – including Stirling Moss’s 1960 and 1961 Tourist Trophy winners – and GTOs, 275 GTBs, 275 P, 365 P and a sublime 250 LM corralled from private collections.

2. Freddie March Memorial Trophy Friday fun

Freddie March Trophy celebrates 1950s sportscar races (Photo by: Jeff Bloxham / Motorsport Images)

The race card opens on Friday evening, remembering the Nine Hour endurance races that graced the circuit in 1952, 1953 and 1955. Despite Jaguar’s pomp over 24 hours at Le Mans, David Brown’s reliable Aston Martins trounced the quicker C-types in all three years. Peter Collins/Pat Griffith (DB3), Reg Parnell/Eric Thompson and Peter Walker/Dennis Poore (DB3Ss) were Aston’s heroes.

Seventy years after the News of the World International opened this rich inter-marque era, the old rivalry is renewed, albeit with different odds. Wolfgang Friedrichs and Matthias and Carlos Sielecki (DB3Ss) face several C-types, of which Sam Hancock/Fred Wakeman’s is likely to be quickest, and a particularly strong Ferrari challenge. F1 veteran Karun Chandhok and Gary Pearson – the driver with more Goodwood historic era wins than any other – look strong in a 750 Monza, while David Franklin/Emanuele Pirro share a 225S like those which finished second and third in 1952.

Porsche racer Simona de Silvestro shares Katarina Kyvalova’s Cooper-Jaguar in a pack replete with Austin-Healey 100Ss, Frazer Nash Le Mans Replicas, Cooper Bobtails and period race veteran Malcolm Harrison’s Cooper-Bristol.

3. BRM V16 is Goodwood Trophy star

BRM V16 won't just be on display at Goodwood (Photo by: BRM)

Experiencing the spectacle of a BRM V16 being fired up and raced hard by a fine driver is unmissable to petrolheads. Rob Hall will exercise the first of three new Type 15s, built by family firm Hall & Hall in Saturday’s Goodwood Trophy race. Commissioned by John Owen, son of BRM’s industrialist owner Sir Alfred, chassis IV with its shrieking 12,000rpm centrifugally supercharged 1500cc engine will set cameras clicking 60 years after Graham Hill won BRM’s F1 world championship title in rear-engined 1500cc V8 chassis.

Before founding British Racing Motors, Raymond Mays and Peter Berthon’s English Racing Automobiles occupied them in the 1930s. Eight A-D type ERAs provide the BRM’s principal opposition, alongside a shapely Maserati 4CLT/48, a sister to Reg Parnell’s period winner, and stablemates from Modena. US-domiciled Briton Mark Gillies will be out to extend his run of success in Dick Skipworth’s ERA R3A, but faces old friend David Morris in R11B, raced here by John Bolster in 1948. The pack also embraces Alta 61 IS, Alfa Romeo 308, Bugatti T72, Ferrari 212 and Talbot Lago T26C.

4. Jimmie Johnson joins St Mary's throng

NASCAR star will be behind the wheel of a Galaxie (Photo by: Gary Hawkins)

Seven-time NASCAR Cup champion turned IndyCar racer Jimmie Johnson’s participation in the St Mary’s Trophy is a massive coup for the tin-top contest. With 83 victories on his slate and five successive stock car titles from 2006-10, the Californian is amply qualified to max Gregor Fisken’s Ford Galaxie 500 in Saturday’s pro leg of the two-parter.

Le Mans winners David Brabham, ‘Dindo’ Capello, Romain Dumas, Marcel Fassler, Brendon Hartley, Andre Lotterer, Neel Jani and Tom Kristensen are among his rivals. Tiff Needell, Anthony Reid, Darren Turner, Nic Minassian, Karun Chandhok, Esteban Gutierrez, Frank Stippler, Stoffel Vandoorne and Jean-Eric Vergne are in, with touring car champions Matt Neal, Gordon Shedden, Andrew Jordan, Steve Soper, Andy Priaulx and Rob Huff, rally man Craig Breen and Goodwood hillclimb record holder Max Chilton.

Alfa Romeo GTAs, Lotus Cortinas, BMW TiSAs and Mini Cooper Ss galore, plus Jaguar Mk2s and a Plymouth Barracuda, colour the action. Hot combos include Bill Shepherd/Dumas and Ian Dalglish/Shedden (Galaxies), Alex Furiani/Stippler (Alfa), Andy Wolfe/Soper and Mike/Andy Jordan (Cortinas) and Nick Swift/Hartley and Bill Sollis/Alex Brundle (Minis).

5. Jackie Stewart leads Graham Hill tribute

Stewart (r) will be among those remembering Hill (Photo by: Motorsport Images)

Graham Hill was born in February 1929, seven months before Stirling Moss, but his racing career – underpinned by graft rather than privilege – started later, in the early 1950s. Hill first raced at Goodwood at Easter 1957, but made his F1 debut in 1958, with Colin Chapman’s Team Lotus. His career blossomed with BRM in 1962, when a fourth GP victory in South Africa’s finale – having finished every round – wrested the world championship from Lotus’s Jim Clark, who had won thrice but retired while leading the decider.

Back with Lotus, Hill won a second crown in 1968, but his career statistics speak for themselves. Fourteen GP victories, five at Monaco, in an F1 career that endured until 1975, plus wins in the 1966 Indianapolis 500 (Lola) and the 1972 Le Mans 24 Hours (Matra-Simca, with Henri Pescarolo) at his 10th attempt, four Tasman races and non-championship F1 events is a remarkable CV. Son Damon (the 1996 world champion), grandson Josh and BRM team-mate Sir Jackie Stewart lead a throng demonstrating a fleet of cars showcasing his wonderful career on all three days.

6. Huff returns to his MGB racing roots

The MGB's 60th birthday is being celebrated (Photo by: Gary Hawkins)

Rob Huff cut his post-karting racing teeth in father Peter’s MGB, and went on to win the British Formula Vauxhall championship in 2000. Having switched to touring cars, he became world champion driving a Chevrolet Cruze in 2012, but has often returned to compete in MGs for fun between professional gigs. Now 42, the current Zengo Motorsport driver still loves Bs and starts favourite as a full field of Britain’s most accessible 1960s sportscars contests Sunday’s Lavant Cup race in the model’s 60th anniversary year.

Opposition will surely come from ex-Porsche driver Mark Cole in former Chevron B8 racer Tim Greenhill’s car and versatile historic specialist Jason Minshaw in Mark Hope’s. Chris Ryan saddles the late Barry Sidery-Smith’s Le Mans MGB in a pack that contains Mark Ashworth, Formula Fordster Josh Barnett and Goodwood commentator Ed Foster. Of interest is the special-bodied WSM coupe derivative of Tony Wilson-Spratt whose father Douglas (1921-2011) built this and others based on frogeye Sprites at Delta Garages in Leighton Buzzard.

7. F1 cars gun for Glover Trophy gold

Lotus 25s (left) will be among the Glover Trophy field (Photo by: Jeff Bloxham / Motorsport Images)

Despite the prevailing 1500cc regulations, V8-engined F1 cars lapped Goodwood quickest in period, Scottish stars Jackie Stewart (BRM P261) and Jim Clark (Lotus-Climax 25) sharing the ultimate record at 1m20.4s (107.46mph) on Easter Monday 1965. Clark won the circuit’s final F1 race from Stewart’s team-mate Graham Hill.

Both types of car are engaged in Saturday’s Glover Trophy showpiece, although Swiss Philipp Buhofer (BRM) is outnumbered by the monocoque Lotuses driven by seven-time winner Andy Middlehurst and 2016 interloper Nick Fennell. A quartet of tubeframe Lotus 24s are in the mix too, piloted by wet 2017 victor Martin Stretton, John Milicevic (BRM powered), Andrew Beaumont and Stephan Jobstl (Climax).

American legend Dan Gurney raced his Brabham-Climax BT7 at Goodwood in 1965. Compatriot James King, among his greatest fans, earned Glover gold in it in 2008 and is back. Nobody overlooks Joe Colasacco in the flat-12 Ferrari, which Lorenzo Bandini screamed to fourth in the 1965 Italian GP. Cooper’s period fortunes were waning, but Chris Wilson drives Bruce McLaren’s 1962 Monaco-winning T60 V8, its only 1500cc GP victor.

8. On your marques, it’s Junior showtime

There is huge variety among the Formula Junior pack (Photo by: Jeff Bloxham / Motorsport Images)

No grid boasts more variety than Historic Formula Junior, curated by Duncan Rabagliati and his daughter Sarah Mitrike. This year’s Chichester Cup field – showcasing rear-engined drum-braked cars on FJHRA’s three-crop rota – spans 20 chassis marques, far more than raced together in the category’s 1958-63 contemporary heyday.

Current UK champion Nic Carlton-Smith (Kieft) had his only hiccup of the season at the Silverstone Classic, but it’s difficult to see anybody matching past masters Andrew Hibberd (Lotus 20), Peter de la Roche (Lola Mk3), Italian-American Joe Colasacco (RAM 4), Stuart Roach (Alexis Mk3) and Chris Drake (Elva 300). However, Australian Marty Bullock has been flying in his Wren in Europe of late.

Other Aussie cars come from Elfin, Jolus and Lynx. Italy is represented by the RAM, De Tomaso and Wainer, all with Fiat power, while the Swebe Cooper was made by Swedish baker Bengt Peterson, Ronnie’s father. Crispian Besley, Stuart Tizzard (ex-Timmy Mayer) and period FJ racer Jeremy Bouckley are in Cooper T56s. James Hicks saddles the last of three Caravelles built by his late father Bob.

9. Remembering first winner at Goodwood

Stirling Moss was among the winners at Goodwood's first meeting in 1948 (Photo by: Motorsport Images)

RAF Westhampnett’s post-war history as a celebrated racing circuit dates back to the inaugural meeting of 18 September 1948, when the current Duke of Richmond & Gordon’s racer and aviator grandfather Freddie March presided. Sunday thus marks the venue’s 74th birthday and it is possible that a very small number of people in the sell-out audience were among the estimated 15,000 who witnessed 19-year-old Stirling Moss winning the 500cc race at the birth of a superlative career.

The first race was won by Paul de Ferranti Pycroft in his Pycroft Jaguar, a rebodied SS100. A gentleman with a penchant for the unusual, Pycroft had competed in the 1930s, when he was in his 20s, in a Riley and finished eighth in the 1939 Paris-Nice rally in the S100. Having developed the car for racing, he subsequently contested the 1954 Mille Miglia in a Lancia Appia, hillclimbed an Abarth-Simca 2000GT and in the 1970s raced a Costin Amigo and a de Tomaso Pantera from his Anglesey home.

10. A decade of Settrington Cup pedal power

Huge grid of youngsters in pedal-powered Austins is expected (Photo by: Jeff Bloxham / Motorsport Images)

Debuted at the 2012 Revival Meeting, the Settrington Cup pedal car race has introduced new generations of racing dynasties to glorious Goodwood for a decade now. Roared on from the packed grandstands opposite the pits, and the roof terrace, the pint-sized pedallers urge their Austin J40s from a double-barrelled Le Mans start up the chicaned straight to the chequered flag. More than 60 youngsters come under starters’ orders this year.

Built in a government-funded Austin Junior Car Factory at Bargoed, South Wales, the J40s were made by retrained disabled miners using metal offcuts from Austin’s Longbridge works. More than 32,000 rolled off the assembly line from 1949-71, and the robust cars have become ever more collectable as racers. Indeed, their preparation has become big business, spawning dedicated preparation shops. Watch the super-competitive parents at trackside. Some apparently take the races more seriously than their offspring, but don’t be surprised if many of the frontrunners have been in training since last September!

Expect plenty of packed grids at Goodwood this weekend (Photo by: Jeff Bloxham / Motorsport Images)

Lead Ferrari pic by Gary Hawkins

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