The Winning Formula: Past, Present, 75 Years Flat Out

2025 Goodwood Festival of Speed — Origins didn’t ride shotgun — they grabbed the wheel – took the inside line and never lifted.

Goodwood Festival of Speed 2025’s theme — The Winning Formula: Champions and Challengers — didn’t just celebrate 75 years of Formula 1. It conjured them. The McLaren MP4/4. The Lotus 49B. The Ferrari 312T, powered by a Tipo 015 flat-12 boxer engine, howled as if the hill itself had summoned them back to settle unfinished business. As their echoes hung in the trees, the future came to fight — McLaren’s W1, Maserati’s MCPura, Zenvo’s V12 beast — tearing into history’s slipstream like it might just outrun it. Past and present didn’t shake hands. They went flat out, separated by seconds and smoke.

Hot brakes and wildflowers

You don’t ease into Goodwood. You arrive, and it grabs you by the collar. Petrol. Nostalgia. Ambition. The air smells like hot brakes and wildflowers — strange bedfellows, but perfect for this place. It clings to you in layers: sun-baked tarmac, sweet hay, and race fuel. The Hill pulses like a heartbeat — it is a sanctified strip of tarmac winding up the Duke of Richmond’s estate. At just 1.16 miles long, it holds more soul than any modern Tilke circuit. Drivers don’t race against each other here; they climb against time, memory, and expectation. No run-off, no warm-up, just a blind corner and the truth. Goodwood doesn’t wait for you to find your rhythm. It demands it. Sir Jackie Stewart said, “When you see cars like the (Lotus) 38, you just have to hold your breath.” And this is the place where holding your breath becomes instinct.

Record run

In the timed shoot‑out, Romain Dumas, Goodwood’s high priest of speed, returned with a Ford Supertruck stitched together from broken rules and ballistic aerodynamics. His 44.09-second run didn’t just win—it rewrote what a vehicle that size could do on this kind of surface, outpacing Subaru’s Project Midnight, a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup bred for the climb, and a choir of hypercars — no margin for error at 125 mph.

Meanwhile, the public runs saw legends like the Ferrari 312T, Lotus 49B, Gordon Murray’s T.50, and the blistering Huayra R’s 6-litre AMG V12 assaulting the hill with ear‑splitting fury. The forest rally stage erupted – Pastrana’s 862-hp long-travel Subaru, Neuville’s WRC-spec Hyundai i20, and a battalion of gravel-slinging monsters tore through the trees at redline, rewriting physics with every clutch-kick, full-send jump, and compression-snapping landing.

Legends return

The emotional crescendo came Saturday afternoon. The balcony doors opened, and seven Formula 1 World Champions stepped forward: Jackie Stewart, Emerson Fittipaldi, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell, Mario Andretti, Jacques Villeneuve, Mika Häkkinen. Not legends remembered — legends returned. Decades of titles between them, each representing a different era of Formula 1’s most unforgiving arena — from the romantic brutality of the 1970s to the turbocharged ferocity of the 1980s and the data-driven dance of the early 2000s. Their presence alone rewound the clocks.

Prost and the McLaren MP4/4

Then came the sound. A 1.5-litre turbo V6 snarling to life. Prost stepped into the MP4/4—yes, that car. Chassis #3, the carbon-fibre monocoque missile that once divided him and Senna. Underneath: Honda’s RA168E engine, shrieking to 12,500 rpm, delivering 675 horsepower, wrapped in just 540 kilograms of fury. Born of rivalry, forged in tension, and two drivers who chased perfection at 185 mph, it was the most dominant car the sport has ever seen, with 15 out of 16 wins in the 1988 season. What once split teammates now split time. Prost didn’t just drive — he delivered the MP4/4 back to the fans.

And the hill kept giving. Lauda’s Ferrari 312T. Clark’s Lotus 49B. Alonso’s Renault R25. Each one alive, defiant, present. These machines weren’t preserved. They were unleashed.

The needle in the groove

In a world increasingly sanitized and digitized, Goodwood remains gloriously analog. It’s the needle in the groove. The crackle of vinyl. The sound of man and machine pushing against the edge—and sometimes going over it. One moment, you’re sipping a Negroni next to a 250 GTO. The next, you’re wiping gravel off your jacket after standing too close to a Group B monster taking off. No one checks their watch, because there’s no clock at Goodwood—just the thrill of the now. And as long as there are those who love the dance of piston and gear, there will be a place where it’s not only remembered—it’s revered.

Goodwood Festival of Speed 2026 takes place from 9 – 12 July. Follow here for tickets.