The day Heidfeld tamed the hill
Nick Heidfeld's Goodwood hillclimb record has stood for 15 years. GARY WATKINS looks back at the scary, 41.6-second run with the man himself - who fondly recalls his making a bit of history
Perhaps it didn't mean much to a young man with his focus firmly set on reaching the Formula 1 grid. Not at the time at least.
Yet 15 years on, Nick Heidfeld is proud of a performance that gave him - for the moment at least - a little place in motorsport folklore, even if it did only take him 41.60 seconds.
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Gary Watkins has, for reasons best known to himself, devoted all his working life to covering sportscar racing. This season is his 33rd as a motorsport journalist, during which time he has reported on major long-distance events on four continents and approaching 80 24-hour races. He reckons a degree in political philosophy makes him well qualified for covering the sometimes Machiavellian world of international sportscars.
Gary, who also writes for Motor Sport, Autocourse, RACER and others, lives in Surbiton close to the former workshops of the Cooper Formula 1 team but spends more time on the road than at home for most of the year.
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