The best of 2014 Goodwood Festival of Speed

Goodwood is the closest you are going to get to motoring heaven. Music has Glastonbury, Football has the World Cup and cars have Goodwood.

The Journey

The journey to Goodwood was all about car spotting, for the first hour or so not much turned up but once we got within a few miles of Goodwood, some utter beauties were seen flying past. We were even lucky enough to catch a glimpse of Chris Evan’s Laferrari, Aston Martin DB4 Zagato and the FAB1 Rolls Royce.

The Laferrari as most of you already know, is the newest car to come out of Maranello sometimes referred to as the F70. Only 499 examples of this model have been built and we were lucky to catch a glimpse of three throughout the festival. The Aston Martin DB4 Zagato Sanction II is an even rarer breed with only four built and it was just parked up in a hotel car park with no security.

LaFerrari, Aston Martin DB4 Zagato and Rolls Royce

 

The Manufacturer’s stands

This is a petrol head’s dream. Manufacturers let you get up close and personal with their new cars and even show off some concepts. Nearly every manufacturer tried to outdo the other with lavish stands showcasing their best metal. On some occasions the simple stands were the ones that did it best like TWISTED and Ariel. There aren’t as many people around the cars which give you a better opportunity to examine the car and get some great shots. Out of all the stands I visited, I personally loved the McLaren stand. It could be that I have a soft spot for the British marque but they made the stand open more like a marquee with some historical machines as well as the P1 and new 650S GT3 race car.

 

The Hill

Goodwood Hill isn’t a ver long course, a mere 1.16 mile track. Shouldn’t be too hard for professional racing drivers, right?  The track rises by over 300ft from the start to finish and drivers have to deal with tree-lined corners and changes in light and grip. A few drivers got caught out at Molecomb which saw a few exotics crashing through straw bales. This year Sebastien Loeb, in his Pikes Peak winning car tried his best to beat the record  of 41.6 seconds set by Nick Heidfeld but only managed a 44.6 second run on Saturday. John Surtees and Kimi Raikkonen put on a show for the spectators on the last day cruising up the hill in their F1 cars.

 

The F1 Paddock

This where all the cars which have been lusted over on television for years sat all together. A mix of old and new. Formula 1, Le Mans to Pikes Peak. They were all there. At 11am on Sunday, the people were lucky to be in the paddock were treated to some great sounds when most of the cars were all started and revved hard for a minute. Unfortunately the Mazda 767B wasn’t started after blowing its engine at Le Mans.

The Super-car Paddock

This paddock was filled with a number of great super cars, namely the LaFerrari, Porsche 918 Spyder, Mclaren P1 and Koenigsegg Agera One:1 along with many others. There were also some crazy cars in the paddock too including the Aston Martin concept DC100 as well as the Ferrari F12 TRS. Jay-kay’s kermit green LaFerrari was also parked up.

Cartier Style-et-luxe concourse d’Eleganze 

The Style-et-Luxe pavilion was where pretty cars in seven different classes were to be judged by a number of honourable guests. The beautiful Maserati A6GCS which the Alfieri concept took design cues from, won ‘best in show’ and you can see why. it is absolutely marvellous.

Maserati Centenary 

Celebrating Maserati’s Centenary, Goodwood house set up a little area in the courtyard solely for the Maserati brand. Some of the top-selling cars were on show including the good-looking Maserati Alfieri concept. let’s hope that they put that stunning machine into production and we can wait for it start winning Concourse d’eleganze shows in years to come like its older siblings.

I didn’t manage to find time to head up to the Rally stage or go on any of the experiences that the manufacturers were offering, but that just gives me more of a reason to head there again next year. Take a look at the additional gallery below

additional gallery

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PREVIEW: Goodwood Festival of Speed 2014

June 26th to June 29th are the dates to save in your calendar. Forget everything else for those few days as nothing even comes close. It is the Goodwood Festival of Speed. This year’s theme is based around ‘Addicted to Winning – The unbeatable Champions of Motor Sport’. 2014 also marks the centenary of the brand with the trident badge aka Maserati with some of their most successful racing cars being showcased along with some new concepts. Mercedes-Benz are the featured manufacturer this year with Lord March will celebrate the Silver Arrows on his now famous sculpture outside Lord March’s house. The manufacturer will be celebrating 120 years of achievement in Motorsports along with their 100 year anniversary since gaining a 1-2-3 finish in the 1914 French Grand Prix.

What to expect?

Sebastien Loeb is looking to be the quickest up the hill in the Peugeot 208 T16 Pikes peak car trying to beat Nick Heidfeld’s 1999 record time of 41.6 seconds in the McLaren MP4-13 race car.

Michelin Super car Paddock

Four hyper-cars that have been the talk of the motoring world since they were announced are going to be together.  The McLaren P1, Koenigsegg Agera one:1, Porsche 918 Spyder and the Ferrari LaFerrari will all be at the festival. The beauty of it is, they will all be running up the hill, definitely not to be missed.

The amount of cars on display will be unbelievable, forget any car show you have ever been to, this will top it. Elemental RP1, a new British brand to compete with the likes of BAC, Ariel and Caterham will be revealed at the festival for the first time. Cartier Style et Lux 

Celebrating its 20th appearance at the Festival, The Cartier Concourse D’Elegance will be showcasing beautiful engineering spread over seven different classes.

Class 1-  junior pre-war sportscars from long-lost brands

Class 2- dedicated to the Mercedes 500K

Class 3- Maserati

Class 4- ‘Mad Men’ aspirational 1950s American two-seaters

Class 5- Mid-engined masterpieces such as the Ford GT40 and McLarenM12GT

Class 6- ‘Pony Cars’ inspired by the 50th anniversary of the Ford Mustang

Class 7- front-engined supercars of the 1990s

Judges include the likes of Rowan Atkinson famous for playing Mr Bean and being a true petrol head and Sir Jonathan Ive Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple.

The Hill

The main attraction at the Festival of Speed is the 1.16 mile hill climb running through the southern part of the Goodwood estate Three manufacturers from this year’s Le Mans will be attacking the hill, one of Audi’s winning R18 e-tron, Mark Webber in his Porsche 919 Hybrid and the Toyota TS040 which led for 13 hours this year.

Skoda Rally Stage

The Rally stage is another one not to be missed, with rally legends of Group B. Rauno Aaltonen and Paddy Hopkirk get back into their Mini Cooper S’, 50 years after winning the Monte Carlo Rally stages.   GAS arena

The GAS arena also known as the Goodwood Action Sports arena will host some awesome Dirt jumping BMX with freestyle Motocross with riders hailing from America, Spain, Germany, Czech Republic and the UK.

Racing Heroes 

Damn Hill, 1996 World Champion is among the many F1 title winners who will be present throughout the weekend with some taking old winning cars up the hill. Felipe Massa will be taking Damon Hill’s Williams winning FW18 car, Kimi Raikonnen, Lewis Hamilton, John Surtees and Emerson Fitipaldi are just a few of the names to look out for.

This is only a little snippet of what can be seen at the Festival of Speed so get there early and remember to pack enough batteries for your cameras. Tickets are still available from the website here with prices starting at £27.

Hint

Give yourself enough time to walk around the car park, as you will find many exotics just sitting around.

 

 

The motoring quartet

It has been a while since I last posted something here on my blog. A lot has changed, a new pope has been chosen, political leaders have passed and after the Geneva motor show three super car manufacturers flexed their muscles and showed us what they are made of.With them, there is a fourth who showed off the tech in 2010. Two from Italy, one from England and the last from Germany.

Ferrari had us waiting the longest to show the car, just throwing teasers every now and again and only showing the car when they wanted it revealed. Are the Ferrari staff that good at keeping secrets? Jaguar land rover take note.

Ferrari LaFerrari
Nonetheless, Ferrari laferrari is here. I don’t particularly care for the name or the front end of this car, but looking through its specs makes it quite a contender for the top prize. In their official press release, Ferrari stated that this is the ultimate Ferrari, and is the epitome of the brand and so will the be called ‘The Ferrari’.

I have always felt that styling falls behind air flow in the design of an anniversary Ferrari; and this one is the same. The front end still looks like a test mule, but the side and rear views are stunning. To be fair most drivers will only catch a glimpse of the rear of the motor and not much else.
It has a 6.3l naturally aspirated V12 allowing the engine to redline at a healthy 9,250RPM helped along with a 163hp electric motor gives this monster a whopping 963bhp and 715 ft pounds of torque. It was expected that the car can hit 0-60 in under 3seconds but the surprise is 0-125 time which is sub  7seconds. This is the first production Ferrari to be fitted with F1 style HY-KERS system allowing the batteries to be charged through regenerative braking. Even though this car has a battery pack, this is no ordinary hybrid where the engine cuts in and out. Ferrari felt that the engine was the whole part of the experience so the electric motor is there to boost the engine.

The other Italian is Lamborghini.

Lamborghini Veneno

Celebrating its 50th anniversary, Lamborghini did what they do best. Come out with a radical car. Presenting the Veneno. Named after a bull which gorged a matador in 1914, this Le Mans styled road legal car which is Aventador based, looks simply insane. Only three have been made, priced at over £2.5 million and have all been sold. It has a 6.5l naturally aspirated V12 pushing out 740BHP. This is not a car which has any electric motors, just insane amounts of power put down on the road via all four wheels.

The car presented at the motor show, had accents of the Italian Flag, however the 3 made will have red, white or green accents. As a car, the underpinnings have been tried and tested through the Aventador and to save a little more weight, the men at Lamborghini used Carbon enhanced plastic panels instead of the mix of aluminium and carbon.

Mclaren P1

A British hyper car manufacturer celebrating its 50th anniversary, who has only been known for its F1 success and the car it was named after. More recently, the MP4-12C was launched and now we have a new car. The P1. Displayed in Mclaren Burnt Orange, we already knew what it was going to look like as test mules had been sighted all over England. This car is a looker from every angle as you may have already seen.

Different from the Italians, this car has a twin turbo 3.8L V8 with a similar hybrid set up to the Ferrari’s. Combined the engine and electric motor will churn out just over 900BHP and 633 foot pounds of torque. Taking engineering cues from Formula 1, the P1 has DRS  style flap to increase downforce under braking. Even though this is one of my favourites of the four, I do not think people will appreciate that the underpinnings to this £866,000 limited to 375 examples, hyper car is its baby brother, the MP4-12C.

By far the most anticipated (or forgotten) super car is the Porsche 918 spyder.

Porsche 918

This car is an engineers dream. A car with over 800BHP, 575 foot pounds of torque but returns over 70 miles to the gallon. Sub 100g/km CO2. Dizzying numbers. The testing that has gone into this car is immense. It was teased in 2010, and will be released some time soon. that’s just under three years of road testing. This is no ordinary Porsche, it is a naturally aspirated 4.8l V8 coupled with two electric motors. One of which powers the front wheels whilst the other powers the rear wheels and helps the engine. Here we have an all wheel drive car with four-wheel steering. There is so much tech on this car, it is engineering genius. At low speeds the rear wheels turn in an opposite direction to the front wheels allowing tighter cornering. At higher speeds, this steering turns with the front wheels giving the car more stability when reaching its maximum of 202mph.

Back to those electric motors, this is only one out of the four that starts in ‘electric mode’ allowing you to drive silently for 15 miles up to 100mph, where you can flip the switch and allow the engine to help in ‘hybrid mode’ focusing on economy and battery range. ‘Sport hybrid’ mode  is more aggressive and keeping the engine running constantly, which I think most people will keep it on. Then there is ‘Race Hybrid’ which uses the batteries to give extra grunt to the engine and also ‘Hot Lap’ which uses all power reserves to give the driver that little bit extra when racing against the clock. Price of this piece of wizardry – £650,000.

 

All four of these cars cost over half a million pounds, and all run in limited numbers. Who will be crowned champion? Only time will tell. I rule the Veneno out of the race as its more of a museum piece seeing only three will ever be made. The Porsche is looking to be the future of motoring, but will be a rare sight. So I believe it will fall to the mighty Ferrari and Mclaren to battle it out.