Stars, cars and highlights from the 2026 Goodwood Revival

As ever, the Goodwood Revival provided plenty of stars, highlights and unusual cars in 2026, beyond those that took the race victories.

Le Mans winners, a triple Formula 1 world champion and a famous Italian marque were all part of the weekend, while some special cars were seen back on track.

Here are some of the things that caught our eye across the races and on-track demonstrations.

For a review of the 2026 Revival winners, click below.

1966 Le Mans Ford celebration

Ford Le Mans '66

Photo by: Gary Hawkins

Ford’s 1-2-3 at Le Mans in 1966, breaking Ferrari’s stranglehold on the 24 Hours and made even more famous by 2019’s Le Mans ’66 film, was celebrated on all three days of the Revival.

Ford’s third effort to win Le Mans included eight, seven-litre V8 GT40 Mk2s spread across three factory-backed teams – Shelby American, Holman & Moody, and Alan Mann Racing – as well as a squad of 4.7-litre Mk1s in support.

The three Mk2s that survived to cross the line together in France 60 years ago were reunited and the climax of their (at times, rapid) demonstrations was reliving the controversial 1966 Le Mans ‘photo finish’. Did Ken Miles back off or Bruce McLaren accelerate following the team orders to get them together?

The winning car of McLaren and Chris Amon, chassis P/1046, was driven by three-time Le Mans winner Andre Lotterer on Friday, joined by fellow Audi victors Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler.

Chassis P/1015, which had won the 1966 Daytona 24 Hours, finished second in the hands of Miles and Denny Hulme, while P/1016 took third driven by Ronnie Bucknam and Dick Hutcherson.

American motorsport legends took over on Saturday, with seven-time NASCAR Cup champion Jimmie Johnson driving the winner, joined by six-time IndyCar title winner Scott Dixon and four-time Indianapolis 500 victor Helio Castroneves.

Drivers with 19 Le Mans successes between them took over on Sunday: nine-time winner Tom Kristensen leading quintuple victors Derek Bell and Emanuele Pirro.

“What a treat, a privilege it is,” said Kristensen. “Back then Ford’s dream was to end Ferrari’s victories at Le Mans and now the cars are owned by the same owner, who is gracious enough to bring them here.

“It’s a fantastic treat. Not a lot of grip, not a lot of downforce, but a huge V8 engine and everything is analogue.”

Brabham’s special feats remembered

David Brabham

Photo by: Jeff Bloxham

Triple F1 world champion Sir Jack Brabham (1926-2014) was the complete package – a grafter as capable on tools in the workshop or field as he was in the cockpit.

Brabham’s Goodwood career spanned 5 April 1955, when newly arrived from Australia he made his European debut in an uncompetitive Cooper-Alta T24, to 11 April 1966, when he led Kiwi friend and team-mate Hulme home in a 1-2 for Brabham-Honda BT18s powered by Honda engines in the British Automobile Racing Club’s race for the new 1000cc F2.

In the interim he had finished second with Roy Salvadori to Stirling Moss/Tony Brooks and ahead of team-mates Carroll Shelby/Stuart Lewis-Evans in Aston Martin’s 1-2-3 in the 1958 Tourist Trophy. Brabham raced and tested at Goodwood countless times.

The Duke of Richmond & Gordon’s passionate tribute, celebrating the 100th anniversary of Jack’s birth, was topped by Jack’s son David Brabham leading the cavalcades of cars driving a 1966 F1 title-winning Brabham-Repco BT20. Double F1 world champion Emerson Fittipaldi also joined in.

The Cooper Car Company’s trailblazing 1959 and 1960 champion left his ultimate mark as both manufacturer and driver winning the title in a car bearing his own name, created with the genial Ron Tauranac (1925-2020) with whom he formed Motor Racing Developments in 1962. A feat unlikely to be matched.   

PLUS: Jack Brabham's 10 greatest drives

‘British’ Alfa Romeo’s successful return

Alfa Romeo

Photo by: Jeff Bloxham

Resplendent in British Racing Green, the Hon Brian Lewis’s Alfa Romeo 8C was the first raced in these islands. Winner of the International Trophy races at Brooklands in 1933 (Lewis) and 1935 (Luis Fontes), it was owned by John Cobb between them and the Hon Patrick Lindsay for many years post-Second World War.

Built around Vittorio Jano’s exquisite supercharged straight-eight engine, the car was raced by Antony Powys-Lybbe and Faye Taylor in the 1950s, but had not been raced for around 20 years, since Hubert Fabri owned it.

In the hands of Roderick Jack – whose historic repertoire spans Lotus Elan 26R to Chevron B8, via Ferrari and Alfa Romeo GTA – the 8C enjoyed its Goodwood return as much as its pilot did on his pre-war race debut.

To battle wheel-to-wheel with past master Patrick Blakeney-Edwards was beyond Roderick’s dreams and he finished just half a second behind the Brooklands Trophy victor. “It’s all the car, I’m a very average driver,” said the modest Scot, the Milanese mechanical masterpiece’s custodian for a decade.

Fitting gathering for Maserati’s birthday

Maserati

Photo by: Jeff Bloxham

Maserati was honoured 100 years after its first class success on the Targa Florio. The occasion was marked by a splendid collection of more than 40 monoposto and sports-racing cars, probably the greatest number seen together in Britain, the majority of which were exercised daily on the motor circuit.

From early T26s, of the type in which Alfieri Maserati won his class in the 1926 Targa Florio, through glorious 300Ss and Tipo 61 ‘Birdcages’, via the full gamut of 1930s grand prix cars and voiturettes to iconic 250Fs and the hairy Eldorado Special V8 derivative (pictured) built for Stirling Moss to take on the American Indy roadsters in the 1958 Race of Two Worlds at Monza, this was a most magnificent Italian feast.

Poignantly, Saturday’s Lavant Cup race – a dedicated Maserati versus Ferrari sportscar contest – was won by the Trident-wielding Richard Wilson in his elegant ex-Jim Hall/Carroll Shelby 250Si, which left the Prancing Horses behind.

Le Mans Lotus harasses the big guns

Lotus Elite

Photo by: Jeff Bloxham

Conceived at Team Lotus as a 1960 Le Mans 24 Hours contender, the marriage of a two-litre Coventry-Climax FPF twin-cam engine, uprated suspension and larger wheels with a fibreglass monocoque Type 14 Elite chassis designed around the 1216cc single-cam FWE, showed initial promise in testing.

Innes Ireland and Sir John Whitmore drove the unique LX in official practice at the Circuit de la Sarthe, where it was apparently clocked 174mph on the Mulsanne Straight, but it was withdrawn before the race. There the project stalled.

Owned by Michael Gans and prepared by Richard Purves, the intriguing lightweight made its historic debut at last year’s Silverstone Festival, and was then shared by Horatio Fitz-Simon at Motor Racing Legend’s Donington Historic Festival and Charade events this season prior to Goodwood.

With one test day behind it, the 190bhp hybrid was wieldy enough to finish second in the Stirling Moss Memorial Trophy, under nine seconds behind Alexander van der Lof/Yelmer Buurman’s Ferrari 250 Berlinetta. Fitz-Simon set the fastest lap, a 1m29.099s (96.16mph).

V8 E-type gets back on track

Jaguar Egal

Photo by: Jeff Bloxham

A well-used Modsports car when your scribe first encountered it, with Barrie Williams up at Castle Combe in 1967, Rob Beck’s confection married a Jaguar E-type chassis with a seven-litre Ford Galaxie engine, hence the Egal moniker.

‘Whizzo’ – who passed away eight years ago, ironically over the weekend of the Revival, where he was a five-time race winner in ERA R3A, Connaught A4 and Jaguar E-type in its early years – would not recognise it now, restored by CKL Developments to pristine condition for Bonamy Grimes.

Its TT Celebration entry, with Johnny Mowlem co-driving, raised eyebrows among regulars but was an early retirement as development and learning continues.

Lola charges through big banger field

Jack Leighton

Photo by: Gary Hawkins

F1 was for 1.5-litre engined cars from 1961 to 1965, hence most outright circuit records in the era fell to large capacity American V8-engined sports-prototypes.

Eric Broadley’s Lola Cars, whose little Mark 1 sportscar left a huge impression at Goodwood in 1958, was in F1 by 1962, when John Surtees won a non-championship race at Mallory Park in a Mk4.

PLUS: The best F1 cars never to win a GP

World champion with Ferrari in 1964, Surtees added the inaugural Can-Am Challenge title in a Lola T70 Spyder in 1966.

The only T70 to race at Goodwood in its contemporary era was this example, Harold Young Racing’s SL70/2, then Ford V8-powered, driven to third in the Lavant Cup race – behind Jim Clark’s Lotus 30 and Bruce McLaren’s McLaren Elva-Oldsmobile M1A – by future F5000 star David Hobbs.

Sixty years on, Goodwood Motor Circuit’s chief instructor Jack Layton raced the car, a Macau GP historic support race winner with Frank Sytner up in 2003, started with a 10-second penalty and finished fifth.

Goodwood BMW joins tin-top battle

BMW tin-top

Photo by: Jeff Bloxham

Bayerische Motoren Werke’s robust BMW 1800 TiSAs were part of the international saloon car racing landscape of the mid-1960s, battling with Ford Lotus Cortinas and more lavishly specced Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GTAs in the European championships.

The example ex-Image Race Cars man Drew Crighton’s Advent Motorsport ran here was supplied new to the local Goodwood Motor Company of Bosham as a road car. Owned by Tony Sturgess – mechanic to mid-1970s Image FF1600 racer Mike ‘Fulmar’ Taylor – it flew the flag of Alan Langridge’s Image concern, which moved from nearby Tangmere to Goodwood’s landmark Super Shell Building at Woodcote Corner.

Following a blow-up in testing, Retro Engineering played a blinder in re-linering the block and rebuilding the engine in six days to rescue the Revival effort. Tim Crighton, sharing with Chris Buncombe, set a fine 1m32.593s qualifying time on Friday and almost matched it in finishing ninth, best of the Beemers, in Sunday’s St Mary’s Trophy bout.