Editors Letter: Goodwood takes centre stage
It’s another belter of a Members’ Meeting, says the Motor Sport ed
While the Formula 1 circus sweated it out in the desert heat of Bahrain, more eclectic grids lined up in West Sussex for the 82nd Goodwood Members’ Meeting. The fact that the gathering took place during a period of balmy sunshine before the British weather closed in again only added to the feeling that the event was a bright spot of the year so far.
The Members’ Meeting is open to all types of machines from the dawn of racing right up to today’s racers – something which differentiates it from its bigger brother the Revival which limits entries to cars made before 1966. As we report on page 108, this year’s gathering attracted some showstopping entries not least our cover star from last month, the Lotus 97T in which Ayrton Senna recorded his first F1 victory in 1985. The car has been kept by those unsung heroes at Classic Team Lotus and to see it driven again at Goodwood by Senna’s nephew Bruno was a genuine pinch-yourself moment – especially for the team here who had spent so much of the past few weeks immersing in its unique history.
How was it for Bruno though? “Difficult,” he said. “Turbo cars from this era had a huge amount of turbo lag. You go on the throttle, you have 200, 300hp, and suddenly you have 700hp.”
“Goodwood Members’ Meeting was a bright spot of the year so far”
Other highlights this year included the Gurney Cup which featured Alex Brundle in a GT40 (paired with Ford CEO Jim Farley no less). I must declare an interest here: we will be following Alex’s road to the Le Mans Classic in future issues. There was also fitting recognition of local race team Jota. The Kent outfit has punched well above its weight for years in endurance racing and last year ran a customer Porsche 963 at Le Mans. This year it has become a full factory team running the Cadillac V-Series.R in the WEC which was demonstrated on track in front of an admiring crowd.
Jota appears elsewhere in this month’s issue as part of our big Le Mans preview, while Damien Smith also profiles the team behind the Aston Martin Valkyrie – which will be making its La Sarthe debut in June.
As well as being forward-looking we also find time to look back. Which is a good place to mention the start of our new interview series which will see Matt Bishop meet a variety of F1 stars past and present. This month Kevin Magnussen reflects on his career in a candid and at times moving way. It reminds us that, like the British weather, our time in the sun is brief.
Joe Dunn, editor
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