Bluemel at Goodwood FoS

Posted on October 14, 2017.

Words & pictures by Keith Bluemel

The annual Goodwood Festival of Speed provides motoring enthusiasts with four days of activity and displays, covering virtually every facet of motor sport in a garden party atmosphere within the grounds of Goodwood House. Each year it seems to expand and have even more attractions, making it difficult to absorb all that is on offer, even if you attend every day of the event.

There were a number of themes and celebrations for the 2017 edition, with the always highly anticipated Gerry Judah designed sculpture in front of Goodwood House celebrating Bernie Ecclestone’s involvement in motor sport. The impressive sweeping circular sculpture, with tails carrying F1 cars, celebrated the “Five Ages of Ecclestone”, with a Connaught representing his early driving days, a Lotus 72 represented his managing career (he was Lotus driver Jochen Rindt’s manager), a Brabham BT49 was there to mark his time as the team owner, a Ferrari F 2001 represented his time as F1’s deal maker and a 2016 Mercedes W07 completed the story of his reign as F1 supremo. It was also the first occasion that he had attended the Festival of Speed, and he was driven up the hill by Lord March at lunchtime on the Sunday, before a question and answer session with Mark Webber on the balcony of Goodwood House, followed by a firework display.

A number of motor sport luminaries, past and present were in attendance to celebrate this occasion, including Luca di Montezemelo, Ron Dennis, Ross Brawn, Christian Horner, Gordon Murray, together with a roster of F1 drivers, including reigning World Champion Nico Rosberg. He actually “came out of retirement” to drive a Mercedes F1 car up the hill, delighting the crowds with tyre burning doughnuts on the track in front of Goodwood House, creating so much smoke that the car was lost from sight!

The other major celebration was Ferrari’s 70th anniversary, with an enormous array of the marque’s heritage, in the various paddocks, both on static display and either competing or doing demonstration runs up the hill. The variety was immense with Ferrari themselves bringing over their re-creation of the first Ferrari model, the 125 Sport, with a broad selection of sports racing and GT cars through the years, right up to the current road car range and supercars like the track-only FXXK and the LaFerrari Aperta. A special feature of the runs up the hill was when Sir Jackie Stewart drove Lawrence Stroll’s 330 P4, as this was the car that he and the late Chris Amon drove to 2nd place in the BOAC 1000kms race at Brands Hatch in 1967.

There was also a plethora of Ferrari F1 cars, including a 166 F1, the 375 Indy “Grant Piston Ring Special” that had started life as a 1950 F1 car, a pair of 156 “Shark Nose” re-creations, a 158 F1 and a 1512 F1 from 1964, as used by the late John Surtees to win the Drivers’ World Championship that year. The succeeding decades were also well represented, right up to the factory entered F60, which was driven by Ferrari test driver Marc Gené.

There was also a special Ferrari 250 GT class in the Cartier Style et Luxe Concours, which was assembled specially by Lukas Huni, featuring eight examples, spanning from a 250 GT S1 PF Cabriolet to a 250 GT Lusso. Within the number there were a pair of unique 250 GT SWB models, the Pininfarina “Speciale” with 400 SA style tail treatment, chassis # 2821 GT, and the Bertone bodied example with the “shark nose”, chassis # 3269 GT, together with 1964 Tour de France Auto winning 250 GTO, chassis # 4153 GT.

In case it sounds as though it was all about Ferrari, that certainly wasn’t the case, with a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the ubiquitous Cosworth DFV V8 engine, which had its first race win in Jim Clark’s Lotus 49 in the 1967 Dutch Grand Prix, and subsequently went on to successfully power a large number of F1 cars, also being used in Indy cars and sports racing cars. There was also a celebration of nine time Le Mans 24 Hour race winner Tom Kristensen’s 50th birthday, with both the first and last cars that he drove to victory in the great Sarthe classic in attendance, along with some of those in between. On a more sombre note, there was also a remembrance of a great stalwart of the Festival of Speed, the late John Surtees, with a class dedicated to cars and motorcycles with which he was associated as a driver, rider and constructor.

There is also the always popular rally stage with its own paddock, where a wide variety of classic rally cars tackled an arduous course near the top of the hill. Then there are the multiple impressive manufacturer displays, the Moving Motor Show on the Thursday, which remains as a static display for the rest of the weekend, plus the Festival of Speed Future Lab. If this wasn’t already enough there was the Jaguar test track, the Land Rover Experience, the extreme sports action arena, where cyclists and motorcyclists performed displays of gravity defying feats, live music stages, the expansive vendor area, a Bonhams auction, the previously mentioned Cartier Style et Luxe Concours, and endless other activities to fully occupy ones time at the event. Every year you think that it can’t get any bigger or better, but each time one is amazed at the great selection of vehicles that Lord March and his team assemble for everybody’s delectation.

Click here for a listing of the prominent Ferraris at Goodwood.

Click here for an album of Keith’s pictures on our Flickr page.