The Met Gala for motorsports: Inside Goodwood Festival of Speed 2024

The annual event showcases the best in thrilling motorsports as well as the luxury lifestyle surrounding it

Oracle Red Bull Racing Team Principal Christian Horner with the newly unveiled Red Bull RB17 hypercar. Getty Images

It may be a two-hour drive south-west of London, deep in the heart of the English countryside in West Sussex, but the 4,450-hectare Goodwood Estate is the centre of the automotive world at least once a year.

While the estate is on every motorsport nerd’s bucket list, with racing there dating back to 1948, Goodwood’s annual Festival of Speed brings massive mainstream appeal with stunning hospitality and star cars and drivers – each of whom power up its world-famous hill one at a time for no boring bits – all within the manicured grounds of the Duke of Richmond and Lennox’s home.

This year's event, though, took things to new levels – and not only at the Surtees Pavilion, the new super-luxe enclave, where trackside thrills meet VIP experiences, including incredible haute cuisine from chef Ollie Dabbous of Michelin-starred Hide.

On the ground, it was like the Met Gala for motorsports – with appearances from racing royalty such as several F1 World champions Sir Jackie Stewart, Mika Hakkinen in the McLaren Solus and Fernando Alonso in the Aston Martin Valiant. From elsewhere in the world of motorsport, fans were delighted by Nascar racer Richard Petty in Fiat’s “Beast of Turin” from 1910, and World Rally Championship and Dakar top gun Carlos Sainz in the Ford Raptor T1+.

As always at Goodwood’s Festival of Speed, the machinery is just as important – and there was no shortage of launches this year. The hottest production models and concepts include Mercedes-AMG’s tweaked GT63 Pro 4Matic+, MG’s Cyber GTS concept, Polestar’s Concept BST, and the Porsche 911 Hybrid.

For limited-edition, you only had to look at the one-off Pagani Epitome, Lotus’s all-electric Evija X (which crashed shortly after the startline in a multimillion dollar, carbon-fibre crunch), McLaren’s F1 GTR, and Gordon Murray’s T.50S “Niki Lauda” that screamed up the hill to rapturous applause.

Red Bull Racing, which joined to celebrate its 20 years in F1, wowed the crowds with the unveiling of its Grand Prix car for the road, the RB17.

Sleek lines and astonishing performance define F1 design guru Adrian Newey’s final project for the energy drinks giant, which team boss Christian Horner said features the greatest hits from the Newey’s technical wheelhouse as part of his legacy to the brand.

“This car is literally Adrian off the lead,” Horner told The National. “So, there are no constraints by the [governing body of F1] FIA, and there are no cost caps. Basically this is the ultimate car, and it’s been fantastic to see it come to life.

“We’re very proud of it. It’s basically a piece of art.”

Only 50 pieces will be made (each priced at $7.7 million), with the owners all provided access to the F1 team's state-of-the-art simulators, vehicle programme development and on-track training.

For Newey, the RB17 was all about creating the ultimate track car, based on his design expertise and own time behind the wheel; with aircraft-level downforce to drag ratio and prodigious power that would likely see it outrace an F1 car at certain circuits on the calendar.

“The key numbers for the car are 1000 brake horsepower from the V10 [engine], 250 brake horsepower from the electric motor, so a combined output of around 1250. In its lightest form, it is 875 kilos ready to go,” Newey says.

Naturally, F1 featured heavily at the Festival of Speed. Ferrari, Mercedes (celebrating 130 years in motorsport), McLaren, Alpine and Williams all brought Grand Prix cars of various vintages to Goodwood.

But, Red Bull – in celebration mode – trumped its on-track rivals, with the single biggest display of F1 cars to the estate.

The brand had its own paddock and an all-star cast of both its cars and drivers, from its first pairing of David Coulthard and Christian Klien, through to its latest in Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez. There was even Emirati representation in the form of F1 Academy Red Bull driver Hamda Al Qubaisi, in her first-ever appearance at Goodwood.

The Red Bull festivities were capped off with a procession of the brand’s F1 cars, the largest ever at the Festival of Speed, led by team boss Horner.

“[Red Bull’s maiden F1 World Champion] Sebastian Vettel, unfortunately, couldn’t make it. So the team asked if I could jump in his place,” he said.

“So having never driven a Red Bull car before, it was a hugely proud moment to drive one that had been designed and built by all the men and women at Milton Keynes, and that we won our championship with in 2012. It was a very special moment to see all the cars lined up.”

The V8-powered RB8 from 2012 left quite an impression on Horner, too.

“My respect for these drivers has gone up significantly,” he said. “Because there’s no space [in the car]. How Mark Webber drove that car around Monaco, I have no idea.”

Horner wasn't the only one leaving the event with a newfound level of respect for top-flight drivers and the marvels of the automotive world. With this event riding off the growing worldwide popularity of motorsports and the lifestyle around it, the only way forward for Goodwood is screeching uphill at full speed.