24h Le Mans
Every year, Lord March hosts the Festival of Speed on his Goodwood estate. This year
No less than 13 former Le Mans winners with 26 victories between them will be at the Festival of Speed this year, in an array of cars, some of which have graced the tarmac in the French 24-hour marathon. Jochen Mass will be jealously guarding his place in the cockpit of the magnificent Sauber-Mercedes C9 with which he won the 24 Hours in 1989. Five-time Le Mans winner Derek Bell will be found at the wheel of a Porsche 962.
Another five-time Le Mans winner, Emmanuel Pirro, former Audi factory driver, will also be at the event, alongside another Audi driver, André Lotterer, who has three Le Mans 24 Hours titles to his name and who came third this year.
JJ Lehto, who claimed one of his Le Mans victories in an Audi, will be at the hill-climb race for the first time and aiming for the top with his McLaren. Touring car ace Steve Soper will be climbing back inside the McLaren he raced at Le Mans in 1986 and 1997, while Pierluigi Martini who won Le Mans with BMW in 1999 will be in action in his Minardi M189. The Italian driver did well to hold off stiff competition from Toyota that year. The Japanese marque will be represented at Goodwood with a TS040 Hybrid in the capable hands of endurance world champion Anthony Davidson.
David Brabham, whose father was a Formula One world champion, won Le Mans in a Peugeot in 2009 with teammate Marc Gené. Brabham had to be content with second place in 2003, leaving the top step to Guy Smith, who will be at Goodwood with a Bentley G3. Andy Wallace won Le Mans with Jaguar in 1988 and will be firing a heritage D-type long-nose up the Sussex hill.
Klaus Ludwig who has won the Le Mans 24 Hours three times will be representing Mercedes at Goodwood while Richard Attwood who gave Porsche the first of its record 17 wins at Le Mans will be back in a Porsche for the Festival of Speed. Jackie Oliver, who also claimed the Le Mans trophy in 1969 with Ford will also be present.
Porsche will be well represented in Sussex with 2015 Le Mans runners-up Brendon Hartley and Mark Webber, while Nissan’s ambassadors will be young endurance drivers Jann Mardenborough, Alex Buncombe and Max Chilton.
Cécile Bonardel / ACO — Translated from French by Emma Paulay
PHOTO: LE MANS (SARTHE, FRANCE), CIRCUIT DES 24 HEURES, LE MANS 24 HOURS, 10 & 11 JUNE 1989. Jochen Mass will be driving a Sauber Mercedes C9 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this year.
