How a little electric storm thundered to Goodwood's hillclimb record

Nick Heidfeld's official Goodwood Festival of Speed record in McLaren's MP4/13 Formula 1 car - and the unofficial hillclimb record set by the Volkswagen ID.R - were both brushed aside by the McMurtry Speirling driven by Max Chilton on Sunday. Here's a look at the fan car that blew away the competition

Matt Kew Jun 28, 2022, 1:35 PM

Upd: Jun 28, 2022, 2:17 PM

Nothing has ascended the Duke of Richmond’s 1.16-mile driveway as fast as the McMurtry Automotive Speirling, which last Sunday broke the Goodwood Festival of Speed hillclimb record. Ex-Formula 1 driver Max Chilton smashed the timed shootout competition and both official and unofficial benchmarks with his 39.08-second run aboard a machine that looks not unlike an example of Michael Keaton’s Batmobile that has been washed on too hot a setting.

If you haven’t yet seen it, please go and watch the incredible videos of this new yardstick, plus the side-by-side edit with Nick Heidfeld’s now-toppled 1999 run aboard the McLaren MP4/13. Aside from being a slice of history, the footage boggles the mind for two reasons.

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Author Matt Kew

Matt Kew is Autosport’s F1 Editor, a role he has held since March 2022 following stints covering Formula E, Extreme E and the British Touring Car Championship.

Matt joined Autosport in 2018 to work predominantly on the magazine, but his relentless quoting of Alan Partridge meant office colleagues soon thought he would be better-suited to increased field work.

Needless to say, Matt had the last laugh when he won the Motorsport UK Young Journalist of the Year Award in 2019.

His interest in motorsport was sparked by regular trips to watch ASCAR crash around Rockingham’s banked oval.

Matt read politics and philosophy at the University of Sheffield - receiving first-class honours for his dissertation assessing the lack of female participation in top-tier motor racing.

He covered a wide variety of national race and rally meetings for Autosport as a freelancer before joining full-time. His best efforts to argue the merits of historic racing are undone by a questionable taste in music and James Bond actors.