This weekend, the 11th Duke of Richmond opens his driveway to the world of motoring. Since it was founded in 1993, the Goodwood Festival of Speed has become one the greatest events on the car calendar and a chance for modern hypercars, track legends, and hero drivers past and present to, er, duke it out for the fastest time on the Goodwood Estate’s 1.16-mile hill climb.
The 2025 Goodwood Festival of Speed looks set to be a scorcher, and not just because of a heatwave on the weather forecast—a host of new cars are making their dynamic debut, while race weapons and historics going back to the dawn of motoring will also take to the hill.
Here’s all you need to know about watching the action.
The Goodwood Festival of Speed has become the de facto British Motor Show, and that means it’s the first chance to see all manner of new machines in motion. Alpine’s hydrogen Alpenglow concept car could be the fastest zero emissions machine up the hill and, moving on in approximate alphabetical order, Automobili Mignatta will debut its Rina speedster, Aston Martin will bring the 726-hp DBX S, and the Valhalla, while BMW will send the new M2 CS and Concept Speedtop up the hill, along with showcasing the Vision Driving Experience. Eccentrica will have its Diablo restomod, Ferrari will bring along the 296 Speciale, Amalfi, and F80. Gordon Murray Automotive’s T.33 first appeared at the Goodwood Members’ Meeting earlier this year and its 11,000-rpm V-12 may well be the aural highlight of the Festival. Honda is showing up with its 0 Series EV, but more enticing to petrolheads will be the Civic Type R Ultimate and the new Prelude. Hyundai’s Ioniq 6 N will electrify the hill, and Land Rover’s Defender Trophy will provide the thunder. McLaren specialist Lanzante is launching its first all-new model, which will be a three-seater like the F1 and is dubbed the 95-59 in honor of the racing F1 which won Le Mans 30 years ago. McLaren itself, meanwhile, will be putting the W1 through its paces and Maserati has teased a special version of the MC20. Czech company Praga will wheel out is Bohema in a bid to add to its records (it just became the fastest ICE production car around the Top Gear track). Renault’s racy 5 Turbo 3E will also be one to watch, and Toyota’s GR division is promising a big reveal as well.
The theme for 2025’s Goodwood Festival of Speed is “The Winning Formula—Champions and Challengers.” That means race cars aplenty from the world’s of endurance racing, rallying, Can-Am, GT racing, Formula E and Grand Prix. The cars will be divided into four batches, with the first including the 1995 Le Mans-winning McLaren F1 GTR and the Mirage GR8 which won in 1975, along with a number of Audis that were also victorious. A highlight of batch two will be the cars of 1995 World Rally Champion Colin McRae, with his 555 Subaru Impreza, Mitsubishi Lancer and Peugeot 206 WRC. They won’t be as sideways as the drift cars of ‘Mad Mike’ Whiddett and Ryan Tuerck, however. Batch three is a celebration of 75 years of F1 and will see an incredible array of single-seaters, from the earliest Grand Prix Bugattis and Maseratis to innovative Lotus and McLaren machines and mavericks like Tyrrell, Shadow, Hesketh and Brawn. The final batch includes no less than 28 World Championship-winning Formula 1 cars racing up the Duke’s drive or on display.
Behind the wheel over the weekend will be seven F1 World Champions: Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell, Mario Andretti, Emerson Fittipaldi, Mika Hakkinen, Damon Hill, and Jacques Villeneuve. From the 2025 Grand Prix grid will be Esteban Ocon and Ollie Bearman from Haas, Gabriel Bortoletto from Sauber, and former F1 drivers Valtteri Bottas, Felipe Massa, David Coulthard, Jacky Ickx, Patrick Friesacher, Marc Gene, Ricardo Patrese, Stefan Johansson, Thierry Boutsen, Jonathan Palmer, Emanuele Pirro, Karl Wendlinger, Arturo Merzario, and Karun Chandhok. Endurance racing legend Derek Bell will also be on track, as will seven-time World Superbike champion Carl Fogarty.
The action kicks off at 9:10 British Summer Time (4:10 am Eastern) on Thursday July 10 and finishes at 5:35 (12:35). On Friday, Saturday and Sunday it’s an earlier start time of 8:30 (3:30 am). That means an early morning for the Yanks among us, but it’s well worth it. Visit the Goodwood website for the full timetable. Everything will be live-streamed on the Goodwood Road and Racing YouTube channel and there’ll also be regular highlights packages posted so you can’t use the time difference as an excuse for missing out. Stay tuned to these pages, too, for updates from the ground.