30 Years of the Festival of Speed - Goodwood 

24 July 2023

To fully review the Goodwood Festival of Speed (FoS) you will need more that one day at the Duke of Richmond estate due to the size of the event. Unfortunately this year and for the first time in 30 years the Saturday schedule was completely cancelled. This was due to adverse weather conditions, mainly high winds. Two of us from the PistonClick team went this year and chose to attend on Friday and Saturday.

The FoS runs from Thursday, to a crescendo of motorcars of all shapes and sizes trying to set the fastest speed by charging up the 1,890 metres of the hillclimb on Sunday. So it was with much sadness that we headed home on the Saturday instead of watching what is a quite unique event, not only in the UK, but in the world.

If you are not familiar with the FoS, it has two main features and a number of side shows. The mainstream and fringe automotive manufacturers use Goodwood to reveal prototypes, new cars, and to showcase existing stock.

This is mainly at the bottom of the hill and was on our list for Saturday, so you can imagine my disappointment of not seeing the latest super cars. However, a few did brave the elements and go up the hill on demo runs on the rainy Friday we were there.

Also, at the bottom of the hill is the start of the hillclimb and Duke of Richmond’s house where directly in front of it is the motorsports sculpture that represents this year’s theme. For 2023 it celebrates 75 years of Porsche sports cars.

The central sculpture features in a lot of people’s FoS photos as it makes a great background, so it’s a must have shot for your photography portfolio as the vehicles head up the track.

The headline for the 2023 FoS is the 75 years of Porsche sports cars but as is standard for the FoS there were lots of other “moments” as the organisers like to call them. 60 Years of McLaren Racing, 75 Years of NASCAR, Le Mans 24 Hours Centenary and one of the special moments, the MotoGP Celebration, the list went on and on.

More on that later but the two pictures below sum up the FoS, Sammy Miller on the 1954 BMW Rennsport and brining the Motorcycle World Championship race machinery bang up to date the 2023 MotoGP factory Ducati Desmosedici GP23 ridden by Michele Piero. Both pictures were taken at the side of the track opposite the Duke of Richmond’s house. 

For this year we seemed to be a little further back from the track than normal; a rope determines the safe area behind some large hay bails. However, you are still quite close to the track so you don’t need that super-telephoto lens - 200 or 300mm is all you need.

But, and it’s a big but, getting to your spot to take your photos doesn’t guarantee a good picture as there were a lot of media passes given out this year, so you might be stuck behind a load of “media” who turn up at the last minute. I used the inverted commas as the Duke likes to give young people an opportunity and I’m all for that, it’s what we do at PistonClick. 

So my gripe is that there were a few media that didn’t have a clue what they were doing. Ignorance of how your kit works is inexcusable, so get out and practice before a gig is my top tip, especially if you have loaned or rented it.

Also look at the weather, putting umbrellas up when you are in front of paying spectators is not good, and some people are not as polite as me!

Gore-tex jacket and over trousers, waterproof camera and rucksack cover enabled me to stand in the rain all day and stay dry. Top tip number two, don’t point your camera to the sky when messing with your iPhone in the rain, it did make me chuckle as I watched a few do it. I did offer the use of my dry Microfibre that I always carry in weather conditions like this.

As we have said, the showcase of the FoS is the hill climb and there is a competitive element to getting up the hill, overall fastest and fastest in class but only for cars.

There have been a few fatalities of drivers and marshals over the years, one of which was on a vintage motorcycle so all motorcycles only do demo runs now.

Also restricted to demo runs are the F1 cars. They are just too fast and big for this track these days. This doesn’t stop the drivers from driving enthusiastically. Spinning the cars round and doing burn outs in-front of the main house is standard. 

The F1 cars made a good effort of putting on a show but the drift cars were the ones making the most tyre smoke, even in the wet. Always a crowd pleaser, the drift cars are generally on the first few runs in the morning setting the tone of speed and driving skills that continues all day on the track.

There seemed to be fewer drift cars out this year, which I put down to the weather. I know a few of the motorcycles didn’t come out due to the conditions, which was a shame but understandable. 

Goodwood is the only place in the world where you can see the very best race car drivers and motorcyclists from so many disciplines. F1, MotoGp, Road Racing, World Rally Championship, NASCAR, Stock Car, Drifting and Stunt drivers will take the oldest to the most modern vehicles up the hill.

Goodwood’s thing is to put those drivers back into the cars they drive now or drove back in the day where possible. One nice touch was Hollie McRae the daughter of Colin McRae going up the hill in the 1996 Subaru Impreza her dad drove back in the day with Karun Chandhok.

This year’s fastest up the hill was the McLaren Solus GT driven by Marvin Kirchhöfer in a time of 45.34. This V10 screams to more than 10,000rpm with 840PS at the rear wheels, and is a petrol engine which makes a change from the electric cars that have run the hill in some stellar times.

Max Chilton holds the record of 39.081 seconds set in 2022 in the silver McMurtry Spéirling fan car which generates 2000kg of downforce by the use of fans, sucking it onto the track. 

Second fastest was Travis Pastrana in his spectacular Subaru GL Family Huckster in a time of 46.37. This car looks great when the aero brakes pop out of the body panels to help reduce the speed. Michael Lyons in the McLaren M26  from 1976 was third in 46.89 seconds.

As a fan of the Godzilla GT-R, a special mention must go to Jake Hill in the Calsonic Nissan Skyline GT-R R32 recording a time of 48.18 at 123.5mph for 5th place. 

So what else can you experience at the FoS? On arrival if you are in the main car park you will walk through the main paddock and the holding area.

Both areas give you unprecedented access to the motor vehicles and the drivers. There are a few rope barriers keeping you back, but they are more for allowing everyone to get a good view. You might get invited into the temporary garage for a closer look.

Moving further down towards the Duke’s house, you arrive at the central structure and the lowest part of the hillclimb which we have already had a look at.

The hill is quite steep and the rest of the action areas are located on and around the hill. At the top is the Rally Stage. Keen to see this but not keen on the now quite muddy conditions on the foot paths, I opted for a lift to the top of the hill in a rather bouncy trailer towed by a tractor.

A short queue and a 10 minute ride and I was dropped off at the Rally Paddock. From here I had a quick look at the rally cars parked up and then headed for the holding area at the end of the hillclimb.

This is a great location for snapping especially if you don’t have the photographic kit or skills for fast action photography. Coasting in with the drivers waving, parking up and chatting with each other after their run up the hill gives you the chance to capture the racers, the vehicles and if the drivers had a good run a burn out or two. If that’s your thing the drift cars will guarantee some smoky action here.

I had timed my arrival at the top paddock to coincide with the arrival of the MotoGP motorcyclists and F1 cars. Last year, the unprecedented sight of 1990s giants of MotoGP Doohan, Roberts, Schwantz and Rainey riding together is why the FoS is so popular.

This year they were back with even more legends, Freddie Spencer, Giacomo Agostini, Randy Mamola, Kenny Roberts Jnr and Àlex Crivillé that’s a total of 35 world championships between them!

The FoS coincided with the summer break for MotoGP, so six teams had brought the latest bikes to run up the hill to compliment the legends machines.

Unfortunately, most of the MotoGP riders were due out on Saturday and Sunday so we didn’t get the opportunity to snap them, but a few did brave the elements on Friday including Kevin Schwantz on his 1993 championship winning 500cc bike.

As much as I was keen to see of the latest crop of MotoGP riders at Goodwood, Bagnaia, Pirro, Brad Binder, Mika Kallio, Pol Espargaro and Miguel Oliveira to name a few, there was one rider that stood out, Casey Stoner who would be riding his bike from 2008.

Winning the MotoGP World Championship twice, once on a Ducati and once on a Honda, he was one of the most gifted riders of his generation when there were a lot of great riders competing in MotoGP.

Now if the Duke could get a a few hatchets buried and get a certain Mr Rossi, Marquez, Lorenzo, Biaggi, Capirosso, Pedrosa and Stoner to appear one year together, that would be a sight to see!

A short walk from the top paddock is the the Rally stage, two areas here inside and out side. You can access the inside via a bridge or cross the track between stages.

It is not well signposted but if you head down the main path from the top of the hill you will find the stage. By now it was raining hard and very dark in the woods, so dark that my camera, a Nikon D500, had maxed out its ISO. For the none photography buffs that’s how sensitive the sensor is to light.

As you can see, it performed well all things considered. My shooting buddy was also using a D500. You can see that all of the pictures we took have more grain in the images than usual, but it’s not surprising as the dark low rain clouds were cutting out the light very well for most of the day.

Once out of the woods the light improved, but the weather started to get even worse if that was possible. I witnessed a few people go down in the muddy conditions and some of their friends found it hilarious, probably helped by the consumption of a few refreshing beverages from the many outlets around the site!

I must say, the food and drink stalls are good quality with many being local to the area and not massively over priced. 

Immediately after the Rally Stage is an off road area is worth a visit and it had a new feature - rock crawling. I’m not an expert in this form of motorsport but it is entertaining to watch, and if you are taking a few photos, well worth a visit as there is plenty of action and on this occasion a lot of mud.

Walking down the hill the next stop is Molecomb, a left hand corner. When the light is right this is a great corner for photography. It wasn’t when we visited, but the by now biblical rainfall did help add something to the images we were capturing.

One advantage to the continual rainfall was that there was plenty of space, so getting a good view was no problem. Usually you will need to be here for some time to get a half decent spot, or bring along a small step to get a better view. Most of the spectators had admitted defeat to the rain and retired to one of the three large grandstands located here.

I watched the final few runs of the day, heading back to the carpark not realising this would be my last visit to the hill as the Saturday meeting would be cancelled a few hours later. The cancellation was put down to high winds predicted the following day, and the risk of flying objects from the many temporary buildings on the site.

Driving home the next day we discussed what we had experienced at the 2023 FoS, and one point we both agreed on is that one day is not enough to see everything on offer at Goodwood.

Next year we will be back, again for two days, but this time on the Saturday and Sunday. If you are considering going next year, good luck with getting tickets for the Saturday.

I imagine most of the disappointed 150,000 spectators that were due to attend on the sold out Saturday will have rolled over their tickets to next year.

This will make it difficult to have a full weekend of it at the FoS if you don’t already have a ticket, we do, see you next year Goodwood, Im looking forward to it already!