GOODWOOD FESTIVAL OF SPEED

The Goodwood Festival of Speed is four days in July of motor cars, old and new, driven up the hill through the park of Goodwood House, the seat of the Dukes of Richmond in West Sussex. The hill is a mile and a sixth of the drive in front of the house. Racing cars, rally cars, supercars and motorcycles go up it from Thursday to Sunday, and on the Sunday afternoon the fastest are timed against each other in the Shoot-Out.

Every year a sculpture is raised on the lawn before the house with cars mounted on it, high in the air.

The Hill

The Duke’s grandfather, Freddie March, held a hillclimb on the estate in 1936, and in 1948 opened a motor circuit on the old airfield; it closed in 1966. His grandson, then Lord March, wanted racing back at Goodwood but had no permit for the circuit, and so in 1993 he held it in his own park. The first Festival was a single Sunday, 20 June 1993, with invited historic cars, and twenty-five thousand people came, though it clashed with Le Mans, as did the second; since then it has never been put against Le Mans or a Grand Prix. The success of it brought racing back to the circuit, with the Revival, in 1998.

It grew a day at a time, to four days in 2019, and the crowd was capped at 150,000 after a record 158,000 in 2003; since then tickets are sold only in advance.

The hill climbs about three hundred feet in its mile and a sixth, past Molecomb corner and the flint wall, which has finished more than one expensive car. The record, 39.08 seconds, was set in 2022 by Max Chilton in the electric McMurtry Spéirling, beating the 41.6 seconds Nick Heidfeld had set in a McLaren in 1999.

Since 1997 the sculpture on the lawn has been made by Gerry Judah, who has built them for Ferrari, Porsche, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz and Rolls-Royce, among others.

The Four Days

Thursday opens the Festival, with the first runs on the hill. Classes go up in turn through Friday and Saturday, the cars sent out in batches and run one after another, and the fastest go again on Sunday afternoon in the Timed Shoot-Out. Formula One cars no longer run against the clock; they demonstrate.

Away from the noise, the Cartier Style et Luxe, begun in 1995, is a concours of motor cars on the lawn to the west of the house, judged by people from inside and outside motoring, with a Best of Show. At the top of the hill, rally cars run through the forest on a stage laid out in 2006 by Hannu Mikkola. Drivers are interviewed on the balcony of the house.

In 2026, from 9 to 12 July, the theme was great racing rivalries; Judah’s sculpture celebrated Singer, Romain Dumas won the Shoot-Out for the third year running, and a 1955 Lancia Aurelia Spider America was Best of Show at the Cartier lawn.

What to Know

It runs from a Thursday to a Sunday in the middle of July: in 2027, from 15 to 18 July.

Tickets are sold in advance only, and 2026 sold out in record time. General sale for 2027 opens in November, after members of the Goodwood Road Racing Club; hospitality is already on sale.

No dress code is given. A lounge suit, or a linen one; it is July in Sussex.

The trains go to Chichester, from Waterloo with a change at Havant in about an hour and a half, and a shuttle bus runs from the station to the gates. Aircraft can land at Goodwood’s own aerodrome. The Goodwood Hotel, on the estate, has ninety-one rooms; otherwise Chichester.

The mistake is to drive in by the sat-nav. Goodwood asks drivers to follow its own parking directions instead, and the train skips the morning queues.

The Court

The Goodwood Festival of Speed is not the Court’s own. Tickets, or a place in Goodwood’s hospitality, are sought on a member’s behalf from the day they go on sale, and the Court arranges the whole of it: getting there, by train, road or air, where to stay on the estate or in Chichester, and the table afterward. The Court returns to Goodwood for the racing at the end of the month.

How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.