Home

GOODWOOD REVIVAL PREVIEW

EXCITING NEW INNOVATIONS BLEND WITH TIMELESS TRADITIONS AT THE GOODWOOD REVIVAL

Never one to rest on his laurels, the Earl of March will introduce a number of exciting new additional attractions to this year’s Goodwood Revival, being held at the Goodwood Motor Circuit from 31 August to 2 September.

Complementing the nostalgic appeal of the world’s most authentic historic motor race meeting will be some innovative features not seen at previous Revival meetings. These will include the redevelopment of the popular Revival period garage into an exciting 1930’s-style art deco building, housing a range of mouth watering machinery in stylish art deco settings, to recreate the automobile showrooms and exhibitions of old. Expect to see a mouth-watering selection of historic Ferrari road cars on display in the showroom to help celebrate the 60^th anniversary of the celebrated Modena marque. The familiar Revival wooden country garage façade will be relocated behind the Chicane Grandstand area.

Away from these car displays, the inaugural Freddie March Spirit of Aviation ‘concours d’elegance’ for pre-1967 aircraft will bring together around 30 of the world’s finest, most elegant, original and rarely-seen aeroplanes.

By contrast, a selection of pre-1967 touring caravans, being towed by appropriate period vehicles, will form part of a display to help mark the Centenary of the Caravan Club. The sight of immaculate classic caravans being pulled around the legendary Goodwood Motor Circuit promises to be a surreal experience for all. Almost as ‘far out’ will be some groovy mid-1960s hippie era American chopper motorcycles on display on the Goodwood lawns.

The racing on the circuit will also see some key changes for this year. The improved Revival line-up to make the weekend even more action-packed and enjoyable.

This year will see an all-new grid of production-based sports and GT cars of the
mid-1960s. The Fordwater Trophy has always been a name synonymous with road-based racing GTs, and this year, for the first time, it will feature a grid full of rapid racing versions of the popular production sports cars that adorned Europe’s roads and race tracks from the 1963 to 1966. These will cater for a wide variety of cars, from exotic thoroughbreds such as the Porsche 904 and early 911, Ferrari 275GTB, Alfa Romeo TZ1 and rare TZ2, through to the more specialist British sporting vehicles like the Lotus 26R and 47, Marcos 1800GT, Sunbeam Tiger and TVR Griffith, as well as rare specials such as the Elva GT160, Mini Gem GT and Lenham GT. These exciting sports cars will add an interesting new element to the racing and are certain to provide a fabulous dice as they sprint around the circuit.

Complementing the GT cars in the Fordwater Trophy will be the Madgwick Cup, which offers a diverse grid of small-capacity sports-racing cars from the mid-1950s. These lightweight and streamlined baby racers were the mainstay of sports car racing at Goodwood, forging a thriving industry of ‘production’ race cars for a long line of enthusiastic customers. At the forefront was Colin Chapman, and a gaggle of his sleek Lotus 11 and Lotus 15 cars will race against stiff opposition from Elva, Lola, Kieft and Willment. Taking them on will be the ground-breaking rear-engined Cooper ‘Bobtail’, as well as overseas thoroughbreds such as the Ferrari 500TRC, Maserati 200S and Porsche 718 RSK. These diminutive cars take to the Goodwood track for the first time since 2003 for what is effectively a miniature version of the ‘big banger’ Sussex Trophy. The action promises to be fast, furious – and extremely competitive.

The one-hour, two-driver Royal Automobile Club TT Celebration race remains the jewel in the Revival’s crown. Nowhere else in the world will you see such a spectacular grid of super-rare GT cars racing in anger, driven by great aces past and present. The grid will once again feature a breathtaking £30million array of internationally-renowned historic cars. Expect to see Jaguar E-type Lightweight; Ferrari 250 GT SWB, GTO and 330 LMB; AC Cobra and the original Shelby American Cobra Daytonas; Aston Martin DB4GT and Project car; plus thundering Chevrolet Corvettes. Drivers expected to take part include Le Mans winner Derek Bell and F1 aces Sir Stirling Moss and Johnny Herbert.

Following last year’s thrilling St Mary’s Trophy saloon car race for 1950s machinery, in 2007 it’s the turn of the 1960s cars again. Once more leviathan American saloons such as the Ford Galaxie, Falcon and Mustang will battle with the nimbler Mini Cooper, Lotus Cortina Mk1, Alfa Romeo 1600 GTA, BMW 1800 TiSA and Jaguar Mk2. It is expected that they will be joined by more unusual racers such Dodge Dart, Plymouth Barracuda, Mercedes-Benz 300SE, Hillman Imp and Vauxhall XX4/90. The St. Mary’s Trophy continues as a two-part race staged on both Saturday and Sunday, with an aggregate result. Celebrity touring car drivers will again pair up with the cars’ owners.

Other Goodwood Revival racing highlights will include the single-seaters, with the Richmond Trophy for Formula One cars (1948-1959); the Goodwood Trophy, which now becomes a race entirely for GP ‘titans’ based on designs from before the Second World War; and the Glover Trophy for 1960s Formula 1 cars, which will once again see a spectacular gathering of 1.5-litre GP cars using fabulous-sounding V8 engines. Meanwhile, the Chichester Cup for Formula Junior cars heralds a return for the rear-engined cars with drum brakes, which last appeared at the Revival in 2004.

The Sussex Trophy for sports racing cars ‘in the international spirit’ (1955-1960) is certain to be one of the weekend’s most exciting races. This will be a full-on battle of the 1950s ‘big banger’ sports cars, featuring Lister ‘Knobbly’, Jaguar D-type, Aston Martin DBR1 and DBR2, Ferrari Dino, Maserati 300S and T61 ‘Birdcage’, plus rare hybrids like the Tojeiro-Jaguar. Professional racers Stuart Graham, Tiff Needell, Peter Hardman, Tony Dron and Barrie ‘Whizzo’ Williams are sure to set the pace. The Freddie March Memorial Trophy, for cars that contested the legendary Goodwood Nine Hour race, will once again take the form of a 12-lap sprint, featuring classic sports-racing cars such as Jaguar C-type, Aston Martin DB3S, Maserati A6GCS, Ferrari, Allard and HWM. The Centenary of Brooklands will be honoured with a loud selection of ‘big bangers’ from the pre-war banked motor racing circuit. The Brooklands Museum Trust will also be the chosen charity for this year’s Revival.

The ever-popular Barry Sheene Memorial Trophy for motorcycles is always one of the most exciting races ever seen at the Revival. This is the only historic motorcycle race in the world that regularly attracts Italian exotics such as Benelli, Ducati and Aermacchi in significant numbers. Battling against them will be British Manx Norton and Matchless machinery. Lining up to race are planned to be a host of famous motorcycle champions, including Wayne Gardner, Niall Mackenzie and Troy Corser.

This year’s Revival will feature a special Tribute to Roy Salvadori, one of the most popular and versatile British racing drivers of the 1950s and 60s. Goodwood will also celebrate 40 Years of the Cosworth DFV Engine in a series of special track demonstrations at the Revival. Ford’s Cosworth-designed Double Four Valve engine came to the fore in F1 racing in 1967 just a few short months after Goodwood Motor Circuit closed its doors to competitive motor racing. Indeed, the promised performance increases of this and similar engines was a contributing factor in the demise of racing at Goodwood. Nonetheless, the circuit was used extensively in the testing and development of many DFV-powered cars, and in marking the anniversary of perhaps the world’s most famous engine we will gather together around 20 iconic racing machines to have used it.

THE WEEK IN F1

All the facts, fiction, rumour and innuendo….

Well let’s say it, the Hungarian Grand Prix was a BORE!!! The only thing that livened up proceedings was the decent into chaos at McLaren. It all started quite normally on Friday with the usual suspects all being at the front of the field after first practice, except that BMW had put Kubica on soft tyres and bugger-all fuel which left him at the top of the time sheets by just under two tenths from Massa. In the afternoon session Alonso was the only one to drop under the 1minute 21 barrier ahead of Kovalainen in the Renault. The Ferrari’s were starting to look like they may struggle for a race win here with the pair of them being over half a second back.

For the new boys, Vettel was showing off his class by being immediately on the pace of Toro Rosso team mate Liuzzi but Yamamoto in the Spyker was showing the downside of having no car time since last year and was consistently around two seconds slower than Sutil.

Apart from that most teams were about where you would expect them to be although the much revised, “all will be better soon” Honda was woefully slow. Saturday mornings practice session didn’t change that much although the Ferraris looked much happier. And then came qualifying………

Session one saw Hamilton on top from Kovalainen followed by Kubica, Massa, Alonso & Raikkonen. At the other end of the spectrum, both Hondas missed the cut along with Sato, Vettel and the Spykers. Yamamoto would not have made it into the top 16 but may have been a bit closer to Sutil had he not been held up by Fisichella for almost an entire lap when he was supposed to be on a quick one. This was to have more telling consequences for Fisichella than Yamamoto come race day.

Session two saw a Ferrari fiasco reminiscent of the old days. Massa had a moment of his first flying lap which left him outside the top ten and when he pitted for another set of tyres, the team failed to put in any more fuel. He made it to the end of the pit lane before stopping and had to be dragged back to his pit box to top up. By this time his nicely warmed tyres were cold and in the end he could do no better than 14th and out of the top ten shoot out. Another one to miss out was a thoroughly confused Kovalainen who after changes to his Renault, dropped from P2 in Q1 to 12th. At the top of the list stood Hamilton and Alonso in the mid 1m 19s followed by Trulli, Raikkonen, Rosberg, Heidfeld and Webber.

There has been trouble brewing for a few months now between the McLaren drivers with Alonso feeling that he has not been getting the respect he deserves from within the team and that Hamilton has not been playing the team game. And on this day it all boiled over. It all began with Hamilton refusing to obey his teams instructions that he move over to let Alonso past. Alonso was supposed to be at the front of the queue at the start of the session, fuelled a bit heavier and it was intended that he would do at least one more lap in the fuel burn stage. He had a slight problem starting the car however and Hamilton beat him to the pit exit. Hamilton’s excuse that he didn’t move over because he didn’t want to let Raikkonen by did not amuse team boss Ron Dennis and Alonso was rightfully furious.

Then came the final light fuel runs. After one each, Hamilton was a tad faster. Alosno was first into the pits for fresh tyres while Hamilton crawled in behind him. Hamilton arrived to find Alonso still in the pit box despite having been reshod waiting for his engineer to tell him to leave. What ever you believe, Alonso waited/was kept waiting for around thirty seconds with Hamilton parked behind him. By the time Hamilton had his new tyres bolted on it was too late for him to complete another flying lap and Alonso had pole.

Within minutes the stewards announced that the matter was under investigation and eventually Alonso was bumped down to sixth place on the grid for impeding another competitor. (See STEWARDS REPORT HUNGARY 2007 for full details of the decision).

This meant that Heidfeld had his first front row start for the year in the BMW with Raikkonen and Rosberg sharing the second row. Fisichella was also dropped from eighth to thirteenth for his blocking of Yamamoto. Much as had Alonso’s chances of winning gone, so had Fisichella’s of scoring points.

After all that, the race was the typical Hungarian yawn fest. Hamilton led from start to finish with Raikkonen never more than four seconds away but with no chance of passing on this awful circuit. Alonso made up a couple of places early but got stuck behind the much slower Ralf Schumacher in the Toyota and it took until the final pit stops for him to take that place. Heidfeld finished in third, ahead of Alonso who was followed home by Kubica, Ralf, Rosberg, Kovalainen and Webber, who would have probably scored a point or two had the Red Bull team not made another bad strategy call. Instead of swapping to a two stop strategy like most other teams, they left Mark on a three stopper and he had to stop from seventh with 10 laps to go to refuel. The Hondas were so good that the only one to finish, ran last for most of the race and finished…….. last.

To complete McLaren’s misery they were also docked constructors championship points for this race although that is likely to be appealed. Also rumour has it that Alonso will not be staying put at the end of this year. It has been suggested that if he doesn’t land another competitive drive he may well retire.

So the Hungarian Grand Prix is over for another year. Unfortunately lots of drama, but not much real racing.

Race results

70 laps; 306.663km;

Weather: Sunny.

Classified:

Pos Driver Team Time 1. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1h35:52.991

 2.  Raikkonen     Ferrari              +     0.715

 3.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber           +    43.129

 4.  Alonso        McLaren-Mercedes     +    44.858

 5.  Kubica        BMW Sauber           +    47.616

 6.  R.Schumacher  Toyota               +    50.669

 7.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota      +    59.139

 8.  Kovalainen    Renault              +  1:08.104

 9.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault     +  1:16.331

10.  Trulli        Toyota               +    1 lap

11.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault     +    1 lap

12.  Fisichella    Renault              +    1 lap

13.  Massa         Ferrari              +    1 lap

14.  Wurz          Williams-Toyota      +    1 lap

15.  Sato          Super Aguri-Honda    +    1 lap

16.  Vettel        Toro Rosso-Ferrari   +    1 lap

17.  Sutil         Spyker-Ferrari       +    2 laps

18.  Barrichello   Honda                +    2 laps

Fastest lap: Raikkonen, 1:20.047

Not classified/retirements:

Driver Team On lap

Liuzzi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari   Electrical43

Davidson      Super Aguri-Honda    Accident   42

Button        Honda                Engine     36

Yamamoto      Spyker-Ferrari       Spun        7

World Championship standings

Drivers: Constructors: 1. Hamilton 80 1. McLaren-Mercedes 138

 2.  Alonso        73        2.  Ferrari              119

 3.  Raikkonen     60        3.  BMW Sauber            71

4. Massa 59 4. Renault 33

 5.  Heidfeld      42        5.  Williams-Toyota       20

 6.  Kubica        28        6.  Red Bull-Renault      16

7. Fisichella 17 7. Toyota 12

 8.  Kovalainen    16        8.  Super Aguri-Honda      4

 9.  Wurz          13        9.  Honda                  1

10.  Coulthard      8

11.  Webber         8

12.  Rosberg        7

13.  Trulli         7

14.  R.Schumacher   5

15.  Sato           4

16.  Vettel         1

17.  Button         1

AVIATION AT THE 2007 GOODWOOD REVIVAL

A RARE SELECTION OF PRE-1967 AIRCRAFT LINE UP FOR THE FREDDIE MARCH SPIRIT OF AVIATION AT THE 2007 GOODWOOD REVIVAL

The world’s most authentic historic motor race meeting, the Goodwood Revival, is firmly on target to reach new heights this year with an additional aeronautical attraction that recalls the style and excitement of flying as it used to be.

The Team Principal, together with the team manager and both drivers were called before the Stewards and asked to explain their actions. Reference was made to video and audio evidence. The facts and the explanation given by the team are as follows:At the commencement of the third period of the Qualifying practice it had been agreed within the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Team ("The Team") that Fernando Alonso would leave the pit exit ahead of Lewis Hamilton in order to benefit from the possibility for purposes of fuel burn allowance of being able to complete an additional lap.

In the event, the car driven by Lewis Hamilton arrived at the pit exit before that of Fernando Alonso and when the pit lane opened he left in front of Alonso. The team required Hamilton by radio communication to allow Alonso to pass in order that he might endeavour to complete his extra lap. Because of the proximity of the Ferrari driven by Kimi Raikkonen, however, Hamilton declined to allow Alonso to pass despite repeated requests from the team to do so.

Reference to the radio communications passing between the team and its two drivers shows that the team told Hamilton at 14:56:44 to "box this lap" and required him to do a "hard in lap" but advised him some 32 seconds later to "slow the pace a little, just lose a couple of seconds before the end of the lap because Fernando is pitting in front of you".

At 14:57:34, just 18 seconds later Alonso was told that when he pitted "we are going to hold you for 20 seconds".At 14:57:46 Alonso's car arrived at his pit stop position, his tyres were changed and the jacks removed just 6 seconds later. The car then remained in position from 14:57:52 to 14:58:12 when the signal known as the "lollipop" was raised indicating that the driver was free to leave.

By this time Hamilton's car had arrived and stopped immediately behind that of Alonso. Alonso, instead of leaving his pit in order that his team-mate Hamilton could complete his pit stop, remained in position for a further 10 seconds. He then left the pit lane in sufficient time to reach the Control Line before the end of Qualifying, completed a flying lap in which he set the fastest time and secured pole position.

Because of the delay caused by Alonso, Hamilton was unable to complete his pit stop in time sufficient to enable him also to complete a flying lap.The team were asked to explain why having indicated to Hamilton that he must stop at his pit on the next lap, they then informed Alonso whilst he was still on the track that when he also pitted on the next lap he would be held for 20 seconds.

The team stated that they frequently give estimates as to duration of pit stop to their drivers before they pit and that the reason the car was in fact held for 20 seconds was that it was being counted down prior to release at a beneficial time regard being given to other cars on the track.

Alonso was asked why he waited for some 10 seconds before leaving the pits after being given the signal to leave. His response was that he was enquiring as to whether the correct set of tyres had been fitted to his car. When asked why this conversation did not take place during the 20 second period when his car sat stationary all work on it having been completed, it was stated that it was not possible to communicate by radio because of the countdown being given to him.Reference to the circuit map shows that at the time Alonso was told he would be held for 20 seconds there were but 4 cars on the circuit, his own and those of Fisichella, Hamilton and Raikkonen. All but Raikkonen entered the pits such that there can have been no necessity to keep Alonso in the pits for 20 seconds waiting for a convenient gap in traffic in which to leave.

The explanation given by Alonso as to why at the expiration of the 20 second period he remained in his pit stop position for a further 10 seconds is not accepted. The Stewards find that he unnecessarily impeded another driver, Hamilton, and as a result he will be penalised by a loss of 5 grid positions.

The explanation given by the team as to why they kept Alonso stationary for 20 seconds after completion of his tyre change and therefore delayed Hamilton's own pit stop is not accepted.

The actions of the team in the final minutes of Qualifying are considered prejudicial to the interests of the competition and to the interests of motor sport generally. The penalty to be applied is that such points (if any) in the 2007 Formula One Constructors Championship as accrue to the team as a result of their participation in the 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix wilt be withdrawn.

The team is reminded of its right of appeal.

FIA STEWARDS REPORT - HUNGARY 2007

During the final minutes of Qualifying, the car driven by Fernando Alonso remained in its pit stop position at the completion of his pit stop notwithstanding the fact that his team-mate Lewis Hamilton was waiting immediately behind him to commence his own pit stop. The delay prevented Hamilton from being able to complete his final flying lap of Qualifying.

The explanation given by the team as to why they kept Alonso stationary for 20 seconds after completion of his tyre change and therefore delayed Hamilton's own pit stop is not accepted.

The team is reminded of its right of appeal.

EXPAT EXPLOITS 1-8-07

This week round the Globe

Only one major motor sport event this week involving Aussie drivers. Having retired from the previous week’s event at Edmonton, Will Powers Champ Car race at San Jose didn’t begin much better. After being baulked badly in qualifying Power began the race back in 12th place, but due to the clumsiness of others, Dan Clarke in particular made a clot of himself by plowing up the back of Wilson under yellow flags, was up to sixth after just a few laps. This became fifth with a fine pass on Bourdais and then fourth after Rahal suffered from rottenpitstopitis. Although never having true front running pace Power intelligently, and some of the other noted “stars” of Champ Car could take a lesson here, ran just quick enough while saving fuel to hold off those behind. All those but Doornbos that is, and since he drives for Paul Stoddart’s Minardi USA team, we will include him here. After a dozy first corner bingle that left his nose cone attached to the top of another car, he drove an absolute blinder to, with the aid of some fine pit strategy, take out a comfortable victory. So, Australian owned cars first, fourth and tenth (Pagenaud) and Power finishing ahead of title leader Bourdais and thus reducing the points gap, all made for a good day in San Jose. All for but dim Dan Clarke in the second Minardi USA car who removed two nose cones in less than two laps of green flag running and retired because there were no more spares.

Aussies had mixed results in the lower categories. In Formula Renault, Daniel Ricciardo finished in 12th place in both heats of the Italian championship race at Misano. Daniel quailed in 19th place for the opener and 17th for the second and may have made it into the top 10 if not for a blistered rear tyre. Meanwhile at Assen, Nathan Caratti came home a fine ninth in the first race in the Northern European Cup round but could only manage a distant 20th in the second race.

Swinging down to Indonesia now for round three of the Formula V6 Asia championship at Sentul where James Winslow finished third in race two, his third podium finish in the last four races. James started race one from eighth on the grid and moved up to finish fifth and had a fine drive in race two to take that final step on the podium, just in front of another Australian, Adil Saryaguna Hermanto in fourth. All this means that Winslow and Hermanto now lie second and third in the championship.

Also at Sentul in round three of the Carrera Cup Asia, Christian Jones had his best finish for a while coming home in third place in race one, and taking victory in race two after the leaders took each other out. An even better day was had by Peter Boylan who took out both race victories in class B.

All in all, not a bad weekend. Next week we will see if Webber’s Red Bull can survive two race weekends in a row, whether Bayliss, Corser et al can come back at James Toseland in the Superbikes and if Chris Atkinson’s luck will finally change as the WRC heads to Finland for the 1000 Lakes Rally. Should be fun.

Sam Snape
01/08/2007

Page 63 of 69