The twenty fifth anniversary Goodwood festival of Speed has come to a conclusion in an exciting shoot out with VW’s ID R Pikes Peak record car coming out on top.
After a scare on Sunday morning where Romain Dumas nearly crashed, in the shoot out there were no such problems as he smashed the record for electric cars setting the third best time of all time on the hill with a 43.86. Only Nick Heidfeld’s all time record in the Mclaren and a Gould GR51 Hillclimb car which set it’s time in 2003.
Dumas said afterwards that the near accident in the morning had slowed his run slightly;
“The target here was always the electric record which we have, although maybe we should come back next year and go for the all time record again!”
Peter Dumbreck was second fastest in another electric car the NEXTEV NIO EP9, the new Chinese supercar prototype, seen for the first time here at Goodwood. He was close to half a second behind Dumas with a 44.32. Before this year, that would have been enough to take the electric record.
In third place was the amazing Judd engine E36 BMW 3 series of Joerg Weidlinger. The engine is pretty much an old F1 spec V8 and it makes this car incredibly quick. Not quite quick enough to beat the astounding electric cars on this occasion but it’s the best of the combustion engine cars.
Fourth was Justin Law in a Jaguar XJR12D from the late 80’s. Law is an ace at Goodwood and usually is somewhere near the front but he couldn’t match the electric pace this time.
Jeremy Smith’s 1993 Penske Indycar was next up in fifth, Followed by Michael Lyons in the Lola Chevrolet F5000 car in sixth.
Seventh was Mike Skinner in the Toyota Tundra Pick up. If there was a reward for the most spectacular run of the shoot out, skinner would probably have won it and visually he looked the quickest.
Eighth was Billy Monger in the Carlin Formula 3 car he is racing this season. At the time Billy did his run, he was fastest of all prompting a huge cheer from the crowd.
Rod Millen’s Toyota Celica Pikes peak car was ninth, nearly five seconds off the VW. With both cars being built to tackle the same course, it show the pace of progress in the past twenty years.
In tenth was Ricky Collard, son of BTCC racer Rob, in a DTM BMW.
Surprisingly Thursday’s pace setter Anthony Reid in the BAC Mono didn’t make the final shoot out although he did win the supercar shoot out on Saturday.
Fastest female was Lorina Mclaughlin in her Benetton B192 in twenty fifth overall.
The BTCC cars had their own shoot out as part of the final shoot out session with Andrew Jordan’s BMW winning it with a 52.58. Josh Cook was second in the Vauxhall Astra with Matt Neal in the Honda Civic in third. Fourth, fifth and sixth were Adam Morgan’s Mercedes, Tom Ingram’s Toyota and Rob Austin’s Alfa Romeo.
The Goodwood forest rally stage also had it’s final shoot out on Sunday with Olly Mellor’s Proton taking first place From Chris Ingram’s Skoda and Mark Courtney’s Subaru Impreza. Nabila Tejpar won fastest female in her Peugeot 208.
It’s been an exciting and memorable Goodwood in 2018. The first ever time that an electric car has been fastest on the hill (And second as well) Will it be the future from now on or will combustion engines come back to take the fight to the electric cars?
As the overall record is still held by a petrol car, it would suggest that the electric cars haven’t got things all their own way yet. One thing is for sure, we will have another exciting weekend in 2019 finding out the next chapter of the Goodwood Festival of Speed story. By Marc Waller
