Racing Revolutions - Quantum leaps that shaped motor sport
The main theme for the 19th annual Goodwood Festival of Speed was 'Racing Revolutions - Quantum Leaps that shaped motor sport'. Celebrating innovative designs throughout the decades these 'racing revolutions' were found in almost all of the classes that made up the 2011 edition of the popular event. The traditional sculpture on the lawn in front of the Goodwood House this year paid tribute to the Jaguar E-Type, which was introduced fifty years ago at the Geneva Motor Show. Designed by Gerry Juddah, the 28 metre tall structure was constructed from over 500 metre steel supplied by Jaguar owner Tata Steel. Unlike previous sculptures, which featured complete cars, this time the whole piece was a stylistic impression of the E-Type. In addition to celebrating the E-Type's birthday, the Festival of Speed also featured the 60th anniversary of Jaguar's first win at Le Mans with a dedicated class. Centre stage, however, was for the Indianapolis 500, which was first organised one hundred years ago. The centenary was marked with five classes of Indy racers that were lined up in Goodwood's own 'Gasoline Alley'. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway even sent over a few dozen bricks from the original track to be permanently incorporated in the hill climb just after the start. Among the many support activities were once again the Moving Motor Show on Thursday, the Bonhams Auction on Friday and the Cartier Style et Luxe Concours d'Elegance, which ran the entire weekend.
For the fifth year running, our photographers ventured to the lovely 'West Sussex' county in Southern England to capture the event in its entirety. The result is this action packed 300-shot gallery with all the highlights of the 2011 Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Bonhams Auction
A founding sponsor of the Goodwood events, British auctioneer Bonhams organised its 19th Festival of Speed sale. The large tent behind the Goodwood House was filled to the brim with lots that varied from a half assembled Bentley R-Type Continental to a pink Pagani Zonda and a Simpsons liveried Mini. At first glance the diverse line-up was not particularly impressive but Bonhams did remarkably well to sell 84% of the lots for a total of 7.3 million pounds. Generating the most interest was a rare coach-built Aston Martin DB2/4 that had recently benefited from a ground-up restoration. The Bertone bodied machine eventually found a new owner for 605,000 Pounds. The aforementioned Bentley project had one of the most surprising results, selling for 298,500 Pounds, which was nearly twice the high estimate. Also exceeding the top estimate were a lovely Ferrari F40 and the pink Pagani Zonda Roadster.
Also on display were a rarely seen Lister 'Knobbly' Jaguar and a Jaguar E-Type 'Semi-Lightweight', which will be offered in Bonhams' Goodwood Revival auction later in the year.

Cartier Style et Luxe Concours d'Elegance
Another set fixture of the Festival of Speed program is the 'Cartier Style et Luxe' concours d'elegance. The entries this year comprised of a mix of the beautiful, the unusual and the rare. Falling under the first qualification were certainly the classes for the 'Boat-Tail Beauties', the 'Fifties Finess' and the Jaguar E-Type. The 'Extreme Lines' for pre-War streamlined specials definitely had some of the more unusual machines ever constructed, including a Mercedes-Benz clothed by the influential aerodynamicist Wunibald Kamm. Our eye was particularly caught by the Adams Probe 16 of 1970, which starred in Stanley Kubrick's 'Clockwork Orange'. Rarely seen at a concours d'elegance were the mass produced machines in the 'People Power' class, which included the likes of the Beetle and the Fiat 500 but also the very first DAF. The important task of judging the cars was entrusted to a panel of ten designers and celebrities. Among them were former Pininfarina stylist Lorenzo Ramaciotti, survival expert Bear Grylls and Queen drummer Roger Taylor. At the end of the weekend they awarded the coveted 'Best of Show' trophy to David Cottingham for his Ferrari 340 America. The Touring designed machine was only very recently restored to its black paint-scheme, which certainly looked better than the red worn by the 1951 vintage Ferrari for decades.

Indianapolis 500 Centenary
That Goodwood host, Lord March, has a soft spot for American racing is well known but this year's Festival of Speed proved that the feeling is mutual. For what must be the largest celebration of the Indy 500's centenary, a colourful mix of winning cars and drivers filled Goodwood's own 'Gasoline Alley'. Spread over five classes, the machines covered the complete history of the legendary race from the 1911 winning Marmon to today's Honda-engined Dallaras. Among the other winners were Johnny Rutherford's 1974 winning McLaren, Bobby Rahal's 1986 winning March and the rule bending Penske PC23 that was driven to victory in 1994 by Al Unser Jr. Each of these drivers were on hand to drive their old machines and they were joined by fellow winning pilots Arie Luyendyk, Parnelli Jones, Bobby Unser, Dan Wheldon, Dario Franchitti, Eddy Cheever, Danny Sullivan and Helio Castroneves. There was also room for odd-ball machines like the Duesenberg Cummins Diesel Special, which was the first car to complete the race without stopping, Smokey Yunnick's radical Hurst Floor Shifter Special, which had the driver in a separate pod and the stillborn Lotus 96T.

Further Highlights
To list all of the highlights of the 2011 Festival of Speed would take too much virtual ink but here are a few examples in no particular order. In what must have been an emotional run, Martin Donnely was reunited with a sister car of the Lamborghini-engined Lotus 102 in which he had his career ending crash in Jerez. Longtime McLaren test and development driver Chris Goodwin brought a very rare works McLaren M1B, which was raced by Chris Amon in the inaugural Can-Am championship. Unlike the Elva built customer cars, this was one of a handful constructed by the factory. In keeping with the main theme were revolutionary machines like the Chaparral 2J 'Sucker Car', the McLaren MP4/1, which was the first ever carbon-fibre racing car and the Mazda 787B, which became the first Japanese and rotary engined car to take the outright victory at Le Mans exactly twenty years ago. The dedicated Jaguar class featured various Le Mans winning examples but also an array of E-Types, including the Equipe Endeavor team car, which scored the type's first ever competition win. Other cars of note were the Costin Protos single seater with a wooden monocoque, glorious three-litre sports prototypes from Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Matra and an example of Audi's 2011 Le Mans winning R18 TDI.

Shoot-out
Although it seemed that fewer cars than ever went up the hill to actually set a time, those that did put in some very spectacular runs. Like last year, the fastest ten lined up on Sunday for a shoot-out that determined the final result. Up until the shoot-out the fastest man of all was Jonny Milner in his heavily modified Toyota Celica. Equipped with an aero-kit developed specifically for Goodwood he explored all the edges of the hill climb, cutting quite a bit of grass in the process. Another candidate for the top honours was German sports car racer Michael Bartels, who made his Goodwood debut with one of the Vitaphone Maserati MC12s that he successfully raced in the FIA GT Championship for many seasons. Steadily adjusting to the deceptively simple looking course, he went faster with every run. In the shoot-out he completed the climb in only 49.09s, which was later eclipsed by Milner who recorded a 48.99s. Neither were, however, fast enough to match the surprisingly fast Dan Collins in the Lotus 88B Cosworth Formula 1 racer. His 48.52s was enough to claim victory for the twin-chassis Lotus that in period was banned before it could take part in its first race.

Supercar Run
Each day the program was kicked off and resumed after the lunch with the Windows 7 backed 'Supercar Run', which in addition to a mouth-watering array of current supercars also included several debuts in the 'First Glance' class and alternatively powered machinery in the FOS-Tech class. For the British public, the Supercar Run provided the first opportunity to see recently launched exotics like the Pagani Huayra, Lamborghini Aventador, Hennessey Venom GT and Ferrari FF in action. The most unusual among the supercars was the Covini C6W, which sports four front wheels. One of the most popular machines in the 'First Glance' class was the Morgan 3 Wheeler. We were told that a hefty 500 orders had already been taken for the quirky machine. The FOS-Tech pavilion provided manufacturers a platform to showcase the latest technology and several of these advanced machines also took the track. Among them were the fully electrical Rolls-Royce 102EX, Lightning GT and Delta E4 Coupe. In the 'Saloon Car' class, Nissan also demonstrated the very mean looking Nismo Leaf RC, which packs the standard Leaf drivetrain in a full carbon-fibre chassis.

Conclusion
Now covering four full days, the Goodwood Festival of Speed is going from strength to strength. Among the most memorable features of this year's edition were the Jaguar E-Type sculpture and the all encompassing celebration of the Indy 500's centenary. All this and much, much more can be found in our 300-shot gallery. We are anxious to find out what Lord March will have in store for us next year.