Goodwood - The Festival of Speed. A mixture of Ascot, Formula 1 and Wörthersee. A tribute to racing, but not only a serious race. 180,000 people make the pilgrimage to Goodwood every July to experience champagne, drifts, old warhorses and racing cars that made motorsport history.
After two years away, it was finally time again in 2022; the legendary "Festival of Speed" welcomed Nostalgic guests to Lord March's country estate. Our fears that two years of pandemic and the reorientation of the automotive industry would have taken away the shine and attraction of this festival, or the internal combustion engine, proved to be unfounded. It was the best festival ever - maybe because of the circumstances.
Many thanks to Lord March and his industrious team, which successfully topped the superlatives of the past. There was enough content for any enthusiast: BMW celebrated the 50th anniversary of BMW "M", and Ferrari the 75th company anniversary. The Formula 1 stars in attendance: Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill and Jenson Button got up close and personal with the motorsport enthusiasts. A particularly emotional moment was the ride by Wayne Rainey on his Yamaha YZR 500. 29 years ago Rainey had a bad crash on his motorcycle on the way to his 4th world championship title in Misano and became paraplegic from then on.
Our personal highlight was the Ferrari line-upin theParc fermé of the festival. What a feast for the eyes, an almost unbelievable sight of so many models lined up side by side!
Current expactions for the program can be found here.
The motto of the festival was: "The innovators - masterminds of motorsport". These are our personal TOP 5 of the 2022 festival.
Full throttle spectacle and British nobility
Smartly dressed people in white jackets and straw hats stroll leisurely over perfectly trimmed English lawns.
Sheep clouds drift in the English sky above Goodwood House . Majestic, ancient trees provide pleasant shade and cider and champagne are drunk at pretty teak tables. This is Goodwood, south of London, a few kilometers from the coast.
Suddenly a deafening roar breaks the silence. A cloud of smoke rises into the sky as the monster motorcycle with almost 1000 hp shoots out from behind a pile of straw bales from the left and disappears at breathtaking speed past Goodwood House to the right from your field of vision.
Squadrons of the Royal Airforce draw spectacular stripes of color in the sky.
Where the English aristocracy usually celebrates elegant tea parties, the host, Lord March, lets everything that is loud, fast and extraordinary race down the driveway to Goodwood House.
Above the time-honored park in front of the summer residence there is a smell of burnt rubber , hot oil and gasoline .
The common Englishman looks at the whole spectacle relaxed, with an amused smile.
In Italy, the spectators would go completely crazy in view of the unbelievable density of prominent racing drivers , extraordinary sports cars and exclusive classic cars .
It is precisely this combination of full-throttle spectacle and British nobility that makes the very special charm and uniqueness of the Festival of Speed.
The Goodwood Hillclimb is now an important and popular part of the international automobile and motorsport world.
From Thursday to Sunday everything revolves around the hundreds of new and traditional cars that conquer the mountain twice a day.
You can only take part in the race at the personal invitation of the host Lord March. So you cannot apply via an advertisement, as is the case with many famous classic car rallies.
All racing classes and generations are invited to exciting vehicles events and champion challenges. Whether from the DTM scene, Formula 1, rally sport, Moto GP, drift competition, motocross, 24 hour endurance races, Indy Car racing series and NASCAR .
The main thing is fast and loud.
The race track is 1.86 kilometers long and leads over 9 curves past Goodwood House to the finish. The route has a slight incline and is therefore called a hill climb.
Nick Heidfeld's track record on a McLaren-Mercedes MP4 / 13 from Formula 1 by 1999 was beaten for the first time in 2019 by an electric vehicle, a Volkswagen ID R .
The rally vehicles heat up on the “Forest Rallye Stage” through a wooded area not far from Goodwood House on the 2.5 km long gravel road.
The most prestigious moment is the Shootout on Sunday, in which the drivers compete against each other with the fastest times of the weekend.
The Festival of Speed extends over four days. The spectacle always starts on Thursday and goes until Sunday. The most exciting days are Saturday and Sunday, so of course most of the almost 200,000 visitors come to Goodwood on these days.
Admission to the festival site for all four days costs around € 200, the day passes for a single day entry with around € 100 costs half.
The tickets can be conveniently ordered online (here on the website of the organizer) or simply buy it when entering the area. However, depending on the time, you have to be prepared for long, long queues at the cash registers.
The average visitor can get food and drink from the countless food trucks .
Those who like it more elegant and English can buy hospitality packages from the organizer, and dine at teak tables and watch the spectacle under awnings.
Those who are lucky enough to be invited by the main sponsors such as Mercedes-Benz, Mastercard or the official champagne supplier can take a seat in the shade of elegant pavilions and enjoy caviar and champagne
But be careful: there is a dress code in some pavilions! So you may want to be prepared for more classy attire. Sporty shorts are taboo. A jacket is a must.
The Goodwood property is approx. an hour's drive south of London and is easily accessible by car. There is an immensely large parking lot that is free .
Unfortunately, there are long traffic jams at peak times.
You can travel by train from London-Victoria-Station to Chichester and from there by bus to Goodwood . This journey works, but it is quite time-consuming and complicated.
Unfortunately, the accommodation facilities on the site are exclusively reserved for special (honorary) guests.
For campers there is the option of staying overnight on the Goodwood premises. However, only limited comfort is offered there (no showers, water connections, electricity, etc.). If you like it more luxurious, you can go to the five-star Book Concierge Camping in Cichester and stay in chic bungalows.
But there are enough small hotels and pensions on the coast approx. 30 mins south of Goodwood. Early reservation is recommended.
You can experience the Festival of Speed with Nostalgic much more relaxed and with exclusive insights. Because we save you the nerve-wracking travel planning. On our trip you are the VIP, even without an Olympic victory and a Grammy.
You will not only experience the fascination of the Festival of Speed up close, but also on a helicopter flight over Goodwood. A spectacular supporting program with AMG driver training on the modern test track as well as Offroad-Training and other motorsport highlights make the event an unforgettable experience.
It all began in Goodwood with aircrafts belonging to the British Royal Air Force.
Shortly before the outbreak of World War II the Ministry of Aviation had begun on the extensive grounds of the Duke of Richmond to create airstrips to create an alternative for the Tangmere military airport.s
A ring road was created to connect the runways.
When the world war ended, the runways, hangars and roads were no longer needed. But the motorsport enthusiast Duke of Richmond already had an idea how he wanted to use the system.
He had the ringroad converted into a race track - the "Goodwood Circuit" - and from then on organized car races.
On the 18. of September 1948 The first race took place and until 1966 elites of motorsport met in Goodwood to compete against each other.
Then it got quieter. Motosport teams and manufacturers only occasionally used the track for tests.
It was Charles March, the 11th Duke of Richmond, who finally revived the legendary Hillclimb - a 1.86 km long, gently sloping road that leads to Goodwood House - and the Festival of Speed in 1998. As a throwback to his grandfather's legendary hillclimb races.
Years later, the Festival of Speed became a world-class spectacle.
Goodwood becomes the Mecca of the "Petrol Heads".
2018 Porsche celebrated its 70th birthday at Goodwood and brought all vehicles there that have won important races over the course of 70 years.
While walking through the paddock everyone could admire the Silver Arrows from the Mercedes-Benz Museum . Right next to it the next feast for the eyes: the Ferrari GTO by Nick Mason (drummer from Pink Floyd)
Martini Racing brought the Lancia Rally Boliden to Goodwood to shake the in-house rally race track through the woods. Well next to each other in the adjacent pit: the legendary Ford GTs from Gulf Racing .
Some Formula 1 racing teams are close to the people here in the paddock and present the astonished visitors with the very latest technology.
You can't stop being amazed during the entire event.
At the Michelin Super Car Pavilion, Ferrari will be showing street-legal Ferraris with which well-heeled customers drive their own racing series. Koenigsegg, Aston Martin, McLaren, Pagani, Bugatti and even more exotic cars show what money - for a lot of money - can buy.
It doesn't get any better, more expensive or faster.
The aerobatic team of the British Army flies with vintage machines from 1979.
The BAE Systems Hawk T1 are powered by Rolls Royce engines and paint the colors of the Union Jack - blue, red and white stripes - in the English sky.
The Festival of Speed has a tremendous impact on the racing scene.
Countless racing legends line up regularly at Goodwood.
The list of participants reads like a who's who of the racing scene
Really unique at the Festival of Speed:
Every visitor can go to the paddock and speak to the pilots.
Nowhere else will you get so close to the stars of the motorsport scene.
There are no VIP passes and screened celebrities.
Of course, a star like Hamilton has bodyguards with them, but the atmosphere is relaxed and contact with the visitors is expressly desired.
The motto in 2019 was " Speed Kings-Motorsports Record Breakers ".
A special honor was given to Record Champion Michael Schuhmacher, who turned 50 this year and won his first Formula 1 race 25 years ago. Ferrari brought all the Formula 1 vehicles that Schuhmacher once drove and had won so infinitely to Goodwood to a unique lineup on the racetrack.
His family visited the FOS and his main rivals Mika Hakkinen and Damon Hill also came to Goodwood to celebrate Michael Schumacher and his unmatched success in racing.
Aston Martin celebrated its 70 in Goodwood in 2019, exactly one year after Porsche's birthday and brought an armada of sports cars from seven decades to Goodwood.
The view from the balcony of Goodwood House of the unique collection of Aston Martins, lined up below the sculpture - with an Aston Martin painted in British Racing Green and mounted 30 meters above the top of the sculpture - is a picture that is not easily forgotten .
The "Michelin Supercar Run" is also getting bigger and bigger every year.
While the street-legal sports cars were positioned a bit away from the center of the action in the previous year, the Supercar Paddock 2019 was placed very centrally and thus one of the most visited areas of the festival.
The field of participants in the Supercar Run reads like the playing card quartet that is currently experiencing an undreamt-of renaissance among boys: Lamborghini, Ferrari, McLaren, Porsche, Lotus, Brabham, Pagani, Bentley, Ford GT, Mercedes AMG, De Thomaso, Dallara , Fenyr, Zenvo, Apollo and many more exotic species.
The manufacturers have discovered the festival as a stage to show the latest creations and engines in action in front of an enthusiastic audience.
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E-mail: info@nostalgic.de
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