Inside the Goodwood Festival of Speed

My weekend with motorsport royalty. By James Taylor

I

’M IN THE world’s best traffic jam. In front of me is the double-decker wing of a Sierra Cosworth touring car, behind me the diveplane winglets of a Mercedes CLK DTM. A man in Audi overalls taps on the window. ‘You might want to switch the engine off so it can cool down – it’s a hot day, and this is a nice car.’

It really is. Somehow, I’m in the driving seat of an Alfa Romeo 155 DTM – the very one in which Nicola Larini won the 1993 German touring car championship. And the man in the Audi suit is nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen. I agree it’s a very nice car, and add that it’s not mine. ‘Perfect – then you can go flat out!’ he grins.

A stroke of luck and a say-yes-to-everything policy meant that between reporting duties I’d be driving four very different cars up the Goodwood hill over the Festival of Speed’s four days. The most intimidating is the 155 DTM, owned by the Museo Storico Alfa Romeo museum near Milan.

The 155’s one of the original high-tech touring cars, with four-wheel drive and more than 400bhp squeezed from its 2.5 litres of naturally aspirated V6. There’s an H-pattern manual, and a giant unassisted steering wheel. Getting from the paddock to the assembly area to join that queue is the hardest bit of the run; the unforgiving clutch needs slipping constantly, the engine dies if you let the revs drop, and somehow you need to brake too, to avoid the milling crowds who constantly wander into the front splitter’s path. I’m starting to wonder if this is such a good idea after all, especially with racing legend Bernd Schneider directly behind me in that CLK DTM.

Running up the hill itself is the easy bit – it only takes about a minute – in as far as driving an irreplaceable bit of motorsport history can be. Driving impressions, all 1860 metres worth, are of lively steering, a punchy short-jab gearchange and an engine which, like all good racing cars, sounds like a bag of nails while idling but really sings through those upswept tailpipes as the revs climb. At the top of the hill Kristensen asks if I enjoyed my drive, while Schneider comes over to ask about the car. ‘I remember racing against it in ’93, in the Mercedes 190E, and my team-mates complaining to our boss about the Alfa’s power advantage…’

It sounds like a bag of nails while idling but sings as the revs climb

Honda was celebrating 25 years of Type R. Touring car star Matt Neal led a parade in the latest Civic Type R, followed by the original R model, the 1992 NSX-R, looking delicious in white. I’m in the previous-generation FK2 Civic Type R. Fast forward to the future the following day, in the hybrid NSX, which is a doddle to drive after the Alfa. It’s my quickest time, because its acceleration is so rapid and it’s so confidence inspiring.

Then it’s back to Alfa, and another car from the museum, with its admirable philosophy that its cars are there to be driven, however valuable they may be. The 1970 GTAm is wide-arched evolution of the elegant ’60s Giulia. Its inline four blats from a side-exit exhaust just under the driver’s door, and since Alfa’s mechanics tell me it’ll foul its plugs if the revs drop below 2500rpm, I deafen everybody on the way to the line.

The gearlever is a long-throw stick of vagueness mounted high in an elegant interior of wood, vinyl and chrome (including an ashtray – in a racing car!). At the top of the hill, in the late afternoon sun, the Alfa looks impossibly lovely. It’s sandwiched between Roberto Ravaglia’s E30 M3 and a life-size Tamiya Jeep – only at Goodwood…