Back with a bang: The big return of Festival of Speed attracts thousands

Goodwood’s Festival of Speed made a big revving return at the weekend – and it is safe to say that it did not disappoint.

Starting on Thursday and running until Sunday, the unique event, with a theme of ‘Speed Kings, Motorsport Record Breakers’, attracted thousands of visitors and offered varied entertainment for visitors of all ages.

The event welcomed world-famous motoring stars, exclusive previews of historic and contemporary famous cars, displays from car manufacturers including Mercedes Benz, Porsche and Volkswagen, a wide range of refreshments and much more.

The hill climb remained as the main event over the four days and Shootout Sunday wrapped up the weekend’s Actors dressed as characters from the Wacky Races TV programme to entertain the younger visitors The Aston Martin Central Goodwood Display with the Red Arrows fastest attempts, with Romain Dumas the new record breaker in the Volkswagen ID.R

With a time of 39.9 seconds, the all-electric Volkswagen set the fastest-ever time up the Goodwood Hillclimb course beating the previous record of 41.60 seconds, set by Nick Heidfeld driving a Mclaren MP4/13 in 1999.

Several key celebrations were enjoyed throughout the weekend, including Mercedes Benz celebrating 125 years in competition and 60 years of the Mini, while the records of F1 star Michael Schumacher were marked.

Despite the weekend finishing with a little rain, visitors were not put off and still arrived in their thousands with their cameras ready to capture pictures of racing stars such as F1 driver Valtteri Bottas.

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