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Loeb tops Goodwood
Sebastien Loeb was fastest at Goodwood... But a tribute to Brabham stole the showNine-times WRC drivers champion Sebastien Loeb topped the timesheets at the weekend’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, but a wall of sound from dozens of race cars staged as a tribute for Sir Jack Brabham stole the show.
Loeb was easily the fastest up the 1.1 mile (1.8km) hillclimb that is the centerpiece of the UK event. Attracting the world’s most diverse field of racecars, the run is individually timed. Everything from classic open wheel pre-war GP cars through to the most modern racers compete.
Loeb demonstrated two racers, his Citroen DS3 world rally car and the Peugeot 208T16 silouhette Pike’s Peak racer (pictured). It was in the latter that he set a time of 44.60sec. Although this was well outside the hillclimb’s record of just under 42sec, it was still 1.2sec faster than the Festival of Speed (FOS) 2014’s next best – set by Michael Bartels in a Maserati MC12.
The variety of machinery on four and two wheels is the key attraction of the FOS. This year Mercedes-Benz was the featured marque and two Mercedes F1 racers of very different eras were positioned in pride of place on the traditional FOS centerpiece sculpture outside Goodwood House (also pictured).
The huge variety of racers combined on Sunday morning for “one minute of noise” as a tribute to Australia’s late F1 great Sir Jack Brabham who passed away in May, aged 88.
The FOS came to a halt for 60 seconds at 11am as “every sort of racing car imaginable, from the oldest veteran to the current F1 cars, went to the redline in an ear shattering ‘wall of noise’ in tribute to Brabham.
The tribute was the idea of Goodwood host and founder Lord March and Sir Jack’s son, 2009 Le Mans winner and Bentley GT3 driver, David Brabham.
Brabham junior told the official interviewers: “Totally and absolutely my dad would have approved.”
Sir Jack Brabham first race at Goodwood in the 1955 soon after he arrived in Europe. He continued to race single seaters and sports cars at Goodwood until the circuit closed in 1966.
More recently Sir Jack raced at the Goodwood Revival classic circuit racing meeting several times and in 2004 the driver tribute was in his honour. He also drove at eight Festivals of Speed in cars as diverse as a BT12 Indy car and an AC Cobra Le Mans coupe.
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Written byMike Sinclair
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