​​Ingram defends Goodwood crown in thriller as Huff gets penalty

Tom Ingram is at the top of his game. The 2022 British Touring Car champion did not need to hound down 2012 world champion Rob Huff – stymied by a 10.75-second penalty for too short a pitstop – in torrential rain, but pure racer’s instinct kicked-in at the 27th Goodwood Revival meeting’s RAC TT Celebration’s climax.

Equally, Huffy yearned to be first past the chequered flag and just held on in a Jaguar E-type photo finish. An emotional Ingram thus repeated 2024’s victory, this time with Richard Kent, whose ex-Dick Protheroe CUT 7 they shared.  

On a dry track, AC Cobras ruled from the start, Olly Bryant charging away from Andrew Smith who had usurped the leading Jag of Andy Bentley, subbing for Richard Meins, with Huff his trump card.

Mike Whitaker, who relayed Ingram into his TVR Griffith last September, when they shaded Bryant/Jake Hill, screamed through to split the snakes, while Bentley ran fourth, ahead of Fred Wakeman’s Lister-Jaguar Le Mans coupe, Bobby Verdon-Roe (Cobra) and Kent.

When Dr Afschin Fatemi demolished the front of his Tojeiro-Ford exiting Fordwater, a stoppage was inevitable.

The forecast heavy rain sheeted in before the resumption, which changed the race’s complexion, with the pitstop window imminent. Bryant installed 2021-winning partner Darren Turner after 19 laps, but the independently-suspended Jaguars of Huff and Ingram had already been lapping quickly enough since their stops to jump ahead. Dario Franchitti had supplanted Smith and Tom Kristensen had trepidataciously taken over the TVR, but Huff and Ingram were peerless, pursued by Andy Priaulx in the Lister and Alex Buncombe in for Jack Tetley (Cobra).

Ingram was eroding Huff’s 5s advantage when news broke of the penalty. As conditions worsened, lapping Kristensen, then 10th-placed Jenson Button in his recently acquired ex-Protheroe/Ed Nelson E-type FHC CUT 8 (started by Buncombe) three laps from home underscored the commitment of Huff and Ingram, who finished nose-to-tail after a kiss at Woodcote. “We were coming through the left kink on the back straight with half a turn of opposite lock, with your foot to the floor,” said Rob. Tom concurred: “For the last four laps we were aquaplaning towards Fordwater.” 

Wakeman/Priaulx finished third, ahead of the Cobras of Tetley/Buncombe, Saif Assam/Shedden, Smith/Franchitti and Shaun Lynn/Jimmie Johnson, who had splendid Goodwood debutant Tony Kanaan close behind after a grassy ride at St Mary’s in Joaquin Folch’s ex-Bruce McLaren lightweight E. Jake Hill finished a lapped ninth in Kyle Tilley’s Tojeiro-Buick, which spun off the grid, but Bryant/Turner faded to 12th.   

Four years on from his breathtaking historic debut at the 2021 Revival, Button broke his Goodwood duck in Friday evening’s one-hour Freddie March Memorial Trophy 1950s sportscar retrospective with best mate Buncombe in Jenson’s Jaguar C-type, blunted by a misfire while leading in 2023.

Bill Shepherd had blasted his Ford Thunderbird ‘Battlebird’ between the C-types of Button (who hit 143mph down Lavant Straight) and Nigel Webb to lead at the start of the Goodwood Nine Hours retrospective.

Theo Hunt, driving father Martin’s HWM-Jaguar for the first time, went with them. It took Button just two laps to audaciously pass Shepherd on the kink approaching St Mary’s. Thereafter the 2009 F1 world champion pulled clear of Hunt and a fine fight for third.

The Battlebird, Frenchman Felix Godard’s diminutive Cooper-Climax T39 and Jack Rawles in Glen Cayley’s Austin-Healey 100S, to be finished by reigning BTCC champion Hill, jostled for position. After starting 15th, Rawles charged to fifth, then ousted Godard and Shepherd.

Freddie March Memorial Trophy

Photo by: Jeff Bloxham

Following the mandatory stops, Hunt’s partner Sam Hancock could not nullify Buncombe’s advantage as merely staying on-track became a challenge. Even Chris Ward, finishing Webb’s C-type, visited the scenery when third looked within reach.

Hill secured third as Romain Dumas wrestled the hulking Ford, but Ward passed the double Le Mans winner for fourth.

The opening laps of the Sussex Trophy race for world championship and production sports-racers, were wonderful, among the most compelling in Revival history. Poleman Olly Bryant stalled his Lotus 15 – “too many revs on my practice start, not enough this time” – but everybody missed him as he got going.

Roger Wills and James Wood in their ex-Bruce McLaren and Mike Taylor 15s reached Madgwick first, with third qualifier Chris Ward in Nigel Webb’s Jaguar D-type on their heels. Ward howled round Wood into St Mary’s, but James dived back inside the Jag into Lavant. As the D-type writhed on the outside exiting the corner, James Cottingham (Tojeiro-Jaguar) and Christian Albrecht (Scarab-Chevrolet) grunted past, but Ward outbraked the German on the outside into Woodcote, moments after Wood had relieved Wills of the lead. Bryant crossed the timing line 10th.

As his rise continued, Cottingham, Ward and Wood disputed the lead, playing to their steeds’ strengths, watched by Wills and Albrecht. In the overtaking manoeuvre of the weekend, Wood dived inside Ward and Cottingham into St Mary’s on lap four, taking the finned Jaguar (on the outside) with him. Ward repassed Wood next time round, but when the fourth-placed Scarab’s engine blew exiting Lavant on lap five, with the 15s of Wills, Bonamy Grimes and Bryant squabbling on its tail, all hell broke loose.

The blue monster spun wildly in a cloud of oil smoke, as did Wills’s Lotus on its slug trail, but Bryant breathed in and escaped as Grimes and Max Lynn (Lister-Chevrolet Costin) autocrossed round the stricken Scarab. After Darren McWhirter’s svelte Tojeiro gyrated through 540 degrees before clonking the Scarab, Julian Majzub’s Sadler, Justin Maeers’ Cooper Monaco and Hans Hugenholtz’s Lister-Jaguar Costin gyrated balletically. Red flags flew for the marshals to clear the scene.

Sussex Trophy

Photo by: Jeff Bloxham

Reprieved, Bryant found himself fourth for the 10-minute restart, but soon led and completed what had previously looked an unlikely hat-trick of Sussex golds – until he was excluded for a non-performance variation from the Lotus 15’s 2018 Historic Technical Passport spec. Bryant has appealed.

Seventy years after the first of three Jaguar D-type Le Mans victories, Ward thus took a superb victory, ahead of part-time racer Wood. Cottingham, Grimes and Wills led their pursuers.

Sunshine supplanted biblical rain for Saturday’s depleted Goodwood Trophy 1930-51 GP car and Voiturette opener, from which P2 qualifier Richard Bradley’s Maserati 4CL was withdrawn with a cracked engine block. David Morris (ERA R11B) outdragged poleman Ian Baxter – chasing a hat-trick in his Alta – but Mark Gillies (in Dick Skipworth’s ERA R3A) snatched the lead into Woodcote.

When Morris slid off at St Mary‘s, bingling ‘Humphrey’s tail, and Canadian Brad Baker nosed the ex-Peter Whitehead ERA R10B into the belting on the exit, the Jaguar XK150 safety car packed up Gillies and Patrick Blakeney-Edwards, flying from P6 in the twin-supercharged Fane Frazer Nash Monoposto.

By the green, a full rainbow arced over the Lavant Straight as PBE twitched onto the Lincoln green car’s tail. He set best lap at a telling 2m00.202s, but could not prevent Mark’s eighth victory in the ex-works car in which Raymond Mays scored the marque’s first major international win, with a 1500cc engine, at the Nurburgring in 1935. US-domiciled Briton Gillies thus leapfrogged Richard Attwood to joint second with Andy Middlehurst in the all-time Revival winners’ list, on nine!

Andy Willis, attending the Revs Institute’s glorious Maserati 8CTF, completed the podium. Michael Gans (ERA R1B) advanced to fourth as Baxter slipped back towards namesake James (Riley-ERA TT Sprite), who outran ERA duo Nick Topliss (R4A) and Paddins Dowling (R5B ‘Remus’).

Goodwood Trophy

Photo by: Jeff Bloxham

Sussex-built Elva-BMWs were 1-2-3 in the imposing Madgwick Cup two-litre sportscar race when an oildown forced a red flag. Mini 7 racer Olly Birkett (Mk8S) and the Mk7Ss of Max Bartell and Will Nuthall that had sandwiched Nick Carlton-Smith’s Lotus 23B on the original front row, refocused for a rainy 10-minute sprint. Fast starter Tom Seckel’s American Bobsy-Alfa Romeo and the 23Bs of Andrew Hibberd and Benn Tilley sat behind.

Nuthall got the drop, with Hibberd and Birkett demoting Bartell to fourth. Max advanced when Birkett – with a lunge commentator John Watson described as “over aspirational” – took himself and Hibberd off at St Mary‘s on lap two.

Birkett bounced back quickly, and had a grandstand view of Bartell zapping Nuthall through Fordwater. Seconds later Olly’s race ended with a thud against the bank at the entrance to St Mary‘s. As he climbed out, distraught, red flags undid Bartell’s efforts, countback gifting Nuthall his fifth Goodwood win. German venue debutant Wolfgang Henseler, in a new car to him, was amazed to find himself third, atop the Lotus ‘class’, heading Hibberd, Carlton-Smith and Tilley.

Lumbering leviathans topped Saturday’s all-star St Mary’s Trophy 1950s touring car race. After a two-year Alan Mann Racing build, Alex Thistlethwayte’s finned Ford Fairlane sat on pole in the hands of Steve Soper and held sway until Tom Kristensen monstered the chasers and passed him into St Mary’s on the penultimate lap. Lapping three cars down the Lavant Straight last time round left Soper’s only option the outside line for Woodcote. Out of brakes he lurched wide, but still shadowed his old BMW team-mate under the chequered flag.

A fabulous Austin A40 scrap for third saw Andrew Jordan stave off Tom Ingram, with Jake Hill closing in, mirrors filled with Jenson Button’s Alfa Romeo Giulietta Ti. “Tom bump-drafted me past Gordon [Shedden],” said AJ after early leader Shedden’s Lister-Jaguar Mk1 faded to ninth behind Marcel Fassler (A40) and Emanuele Pirro (Jaguar).

Jaguar Mk1s reigned in the appallingly wet part two for owners, which closed the meeting. James Dorlin bested Chris Ward and Grant Williams, pursued by Nick Swift’s early Mini, which flew up from 16th. Of the V8s, Thistlethwayte – owner of Thruxton circuit, to which the British Automobile Racing Club transferred in 1968 after Goodwood’s closure in July 1966 – fought the Fairlane home sixth, three places ahead of Fred Shepherd in the raucous T-bird.

Madgwick Cup

Photo by: Jeff Bloxham

The entirely different look of the second race resulted in Shedden and Rolex Driver of the Event Ward claiming aggregate victory by 7.382s from Alex Brundle/Dorlin, with Soper/Thistlethwayte third and Kristensen/Shepherd fourth.

Porsche 904 Carrera GTSs, Alfa Romeo TZs, Abarth Simca 2000s, a Ferrari 275 GTB/C, Morgan and Triumph SLRs, Shelby Mustangs, Lotus Elans in different configurations, and Ginetta G4Rs formed a classy Fordwater Trophy GT focus.

On a glistening track in bright sunshine, poleman Andrew Smith was leading in Kevin Morfett’s Porsche from the Elans of Martin Stretton (IWR coupe), Michael O’Brien (Mia Flewitt’s Shapecraft coupe) and Max Lynn, when Charlie Hyett’s Elan gyrated right and father Ross’s Ginetta left on the cambered exit of St Mary’s, followed into the boondocks by John Davison (Elan) and Neil Armstrong (Ginetta). As they continued, front stub axle failure sent John Tordoff’s Elan off at Woodcote, triggering a stoppage.

Smith made a better getaway from the restart, while a gripless O’Brien found himself only fifth into Madgwick, passed by Michael Gans’ Abarth. O’Brien picked his way back to second but ran out of time to challenge Smith, whose five Revival victories have been scored in different cars. Young Lynn, a Revivalgoer since the age of two, was ecstatic with his first podium, having claimed the scalps of Stretton, Roger Wills (Elan Shapecraft) and 904 duo Emanuele Pirro and Carlos de Quesada.

Following a post-practice engine change, Nick Padmore (Lola T70 Spyder) took eight laps to find a way past Miles Griffiths (in Julian Bronson’s McLaren M1A) in the Whitsun Trophy prototype race, then engaged in a furious scrap with Alex Brundle in Myles Poulton’s Mecom T70. A patient Padmore made it by, only to run out of fuel. That left Brundle to land his first Goodwood win, chased by Griffiths and Olly Bryant (T70), with Phil Keen a fine fourth in Historika Klassik’s reproduction Porsche 910.

Saturday’s soggy Stirling Moss Memorial Trophy pre-1963 GT finale was painful for Austin-Healey aficionados. It was stopped when Richard Woolmer smote the bank at Fordwater on the opening lap and barrel-rolled XJB 876, Suffolk twins Donald and Erie Morley’s 1961 Alpine Rally winner. “I had a choice of hitting the other Healey [of Jack Rawles, reacting to Gary Pearson’s Jaguar E-type spinning on its own water after a radiator hose popped] or taking avoiding action,” said the previous Goodwood winner, a passenger once on the saturated grass. Before the restart, Dutchman Christiaen van Lanschot’s triple Le Mans veteran DD300 was out too, repeated grid reshuffling having presaged an engine bay fuel fire.

Stirling Moss Trophy

Photo by: Jeff Bloxham

Pacemakers Richard Kent and James Cottingham’s Jaguars both retired. A trail of water signalled head gasket failure and leader Cottingham’s demise inside four laps, and Kent’s partner Chris Ward agonisingly ran out of fuel two laps from home when being chased by Andrew Jordan. The 2013 BTCC champ duly took a comfortable victory in Matthew Holme’s Shelby Cobra.

Dario Franchtti took second in Gregor Fisken’s Cobra, but only after the rapid Gordon Shedden (in John Young’s Equipe Endeavour E) ran dry on the last lap. Yelmer Buurman, finishing father-in-law Alexander van der Lof’s Ferrari 250GT SWB/C, precluded a Cobra 1-2-3, repelling Nigel Greensall in John Spiers’ car. 

Beating Chichester Cup front-engined Formula Junior poleman Ray Mallock (U2 Mk2) might have been a tall order on a dry track, but Stuart Roach (Alexis Mk2) was rubbing his hands together with it greasy for Sunday’s opener. As he slithered clear from P2, Adrian Russell missed second gear, then survived a herbaceous Condor (S2) moment at St Mary’s.

Previous Lurani Trophy champion Horatio Fitz-Simon (Apache-Fiat) caught a huge oversteery moment at Woodcote jousting with subsequent spinner Charles Cook (Nike Mk1), but Russell’s recovery was as impressive as Roach’s pace. He had caught Mallock when Kiwi Anthony Olisoff’s Emeryson Elfin skittered into the gravel at Lavant with deranged suspension and the contest ended behind a safety car. “Conditions were perfect for me,” grinned Roach, who completed a podium medal set, having placed second in 2006 and third in 2012.

In a monsoon that favoured the torquier four-cylinder Climax FPF-engined machinery from a safety car start, Stuart Hall (Lotus 21) trounced Glover Trophy 1500cc GP rivals. Runner-up Ben Mitchell in John Clark’s Yeoman Credit Cooper T56 had Kyle Tilley (Gilby) breathing down his neck throughout. Tilley and fourth-placed Lukas Halusa (Brabham BT7 V8) both aborted the chicane en route.

Once past the Cooper T53s of Wolfgang Friedrichs and Will Nuthall, Andy Willis dominated the Richmond & Gordon Trophies race in American Charles McCabe’s ex-Graham Hill BRM P48. Unable to put Climax power down as effectively, Nuthall, victor for the past three seasons, finished seven seconds adrift in the rain, clear of Friedrichs. Richard Wilson (Ferrari 246 Dino) earned Richmond front-engined honours, with John Spiers (ex-Jean Behra Maserati 250F) in his spray at the chequer.

2025 Goodwood Revival winners