Festival Italia Brands Hatch

Images by Matt Evans

21 August 2023

Today we take a look at and review the Festival Italia at Brands Hatch from the perspective of the spectator photographer. There is no great surprise that this event is a celebration of the art of the Italian automotive design houses, and therefore you can expect to see a wide range of Italian vehicles from supercars to super minis to photograph. 

Prancing Ferrari horses and raging Lamborghini bulls are standard fare at Festival Italia, but you will also find many club stands showing original Alfas to modern Fiats.

This gives you the opportunity to practice your still and detail photography with subjects that just don’t pop up every day. 

There is access to the pit garages for those race preparation pictures which make a great addition to your portfolio and help break up the on track action shots. This year there were demonstration laps by the classic F1 cars.

There is plenty of pure Italian racing, with four race series running throughout the day.

The Alfa Romeo Championship is for modified production based Alfas, running slicks or standard versions, and all using Yokohama control tyres.

The Historic Racing Drivers Club have classic and historic saloons and sports cars doing battle.

The other two races are for Ferraris, Mondials, 308s, 328s, 348s, 355s in the Superformance Ferrari Club Classic. The 355 is the newest model permitted in this 12 race series, held at five different tracks in the UK.

The Bell Sports Challenge Series is open to the more modern paddle-shift era Ferrari Challenge Cars, 360, 430, 458 and 488 non-evo Ferraris.

There is something about Italian super cars that no other country that manufacturers automobiles seems to be able to replicate. Yes, the odd car will pop up from Detroit or Bavaria that catches the eye, but the consistent flow of truly amazing cars from Italy’s style houses is truly remarkable and are so photogenic.

Would I recommend heading to Festival Italia 2024? If you are a dedicated follower of Italian horse power in all of its guises, absolutely.

However, all of the race series at the Festival can be seen at other events where there will be a larger and more diverse selection of vehicles on track, like the Donington Historic. The Silverstone Classic will have a bigger and better selection of car clubs if that’s more your thing.

But if you just want to photograph Bellissimo cars from Maranello or Milan, Festival Italia is the place to be next year.