HOW GOOSSENS’S BRANDS HATCH LOVE AFFAIR BEGAN
Despite winning 11 out of 18 races in the 1991 British Formula Ford Championship with Van Diemen, Marc Goossens only pipped team-mate Russell Ingall to the title by five points. That meant the stakes were high for the Formula Ford Festival, an event seen as crucial to the fortunes of aspiring Formula 1 drivers.
A second-year Formula Ford racer, Goossens had backing from Marlboro that would smooth his path to British Formula 3 in 1992 with West Surrey Racing, but still felt pressure on his shoulders at the Festival.
“Every race that I started in that time, I needed to prove that I could win,” he says. “I didn’t have the financial background at home, I was depending on sponsorship and had to convince Marlboro the entire time that I was worth it.”
In the end, Goossens had a smooth path to the final and was never headed on his way to victory, but was under constant pressure from Ingall.
“He was on my gearbox for about 17 laps,” recalls Goossens. “We couldn’t make one mistake or we’d have been out of it. I must admit, I was looking in the mirror quite a bit that day!”
Goossens was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief when Ingall was knocked out by Dino Morelli. Goossens is convinced that Ingall, who earned the nickname ‘The Enforcer’ in his subsequent career in Australian V8 Supercars, would have punted him wide, had Morelli not got to him first.
“[Ingall] was going to take me out, that’s for sure,” Goossens says. “I was most worried about when and where was he going to bump me and how was I going to recover. It was going to happen; he just waited a bit longer than Dino!”
Only then could Goossens begin to set lap record pace, achieving the landmark on the penultimate tour. “We had a good pace, but the other guys did as well,” he recalls. “It was about creating the right package, which both Russell and I had at Van Diemen at that time.
“The Festival was very important. It was a race that everybody knew, and winning that is still probably one of my best experiences in my career.”