73RD Goodwood Member's Meet

Later, as dusk advanced, headlamps went on for Saturday’s closing event, the 30-minute Graham Hill Trophy race for GT cars. “I race with passion”, said Emanuele Pirro, and proved it by winning in the AC Cobra he partnered with Sean Lynn.

Another Saturday crowd-thriller was a handicap event involving a trio of widely-diverse Mercedes-Benz cars – the 2013 Lewis Hamilton AMG PETRONAS F1 W04 racer, the 1971 Le Mans W190 300SEL AMG (Red Pig), and a brand-new AMG GT S road car. GP winner Jochen Mass took off first in the 1971 car, pursued 20 seconds later by Karl Wendlinger in the GT S. FIA World Endurance Champion Anthony Davidson didn’t follow on for another 40 seconds, but was soon fastened on for a seething nose-to-tail trio until, on the final bend, he powered out of the chicane past them both.

“Follow that”, spectators might have said of Saturday’s racing, and on Sunday Goodwood did just that – with an adrenalin-charged nine-point programme featuring everything from ’Twenties GP Bugattis, through Group C racers again to early Can-Am cars. Quality driving brought past glories to life with Nick Padmore setting a new outright lap record in the Can-Am event, while Freddie Hunt drove his father James’ Hesketh 308. “How did it compare with modern F1 cars?” was what people wanted to know. “It’s a lot, lot faster”, said Freddie. “You get so much more feedback than you do with a carbon-fibre tub, and there’s a lot more grip than you’d think.”

There was one moment to dampen the proceedings: During qualifying for the Salvadori Cup on the Saturday, there was a coming to together of a Lister-Jaguar ‘Knobbly’ driven by Tony Wood and the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLS ‘Porter Special’ driven by Jochen Mass. It’s been reported that the collision has resulted in ?4m worth of damage though neither of the drivers were harmed.