Goodwood Festival of Speed 2025: Where Every Second Is a Headline

Every path leads to something unreal: the shriek of a Formula 1 car launching up the hill, a drift car painting smoke through the trees, the Red Arrows carving up the sky in perfect formation. Around every corner, there’s a supercar – Ferrari’s new F80, McLaren’s W1, the Aston Martin Valhalla – engines idling while the crowd pushes forward for a closer look.

Supercar Paddock buzzes with collectors, designers, and the simply curious, all eyeing badges and bodywork, guessing which machine will steal the weekend. On the lawns, an enormous sculpture celebrates the life and legacy of Gordon Murray – a British designer behind some of the fastest, most inventive cars ever made. At the auction tent, someone quietly hands over a fortune for the keys to a vintage Aston Martin, while in the Future Lab pavilion, kids steer robots and grownups imagine what driving might feel like ten years from now.

If you’re lucky, you catch the F1 champions – Prost, Stewart, Mansell, Andretti – suiting up, slipping behind the wheel, and sending championship-winning cars thundering up the Hillclimb. There are moments when everyone falls silent: a Le Mans prototype passes with a howl, or a drift car hangs a corner sideways, showering the crowd in chalk dust. In the forest, rally cars hurl through tight, tree-lined bends, making a new kind of music.

Elsewhere, the Bonhams auction pulses with the hush of big money. Over on the Cartier lawn, concours classics shimmer under the trees, a rare hush away from the engine noise, as if beauty and bravado agreed on a truce for the weekend.

Late on Sunday, the sun goes gold behind Goodwood House. Your shoes are dusted, your memory card is full, and the last run up the Hill draws the loudest cheer. By the time the engines cool and the crowds drift toward the gates, you’re already wishing you could do it all again.