Give me Goodwood on a summer's day ...
The late Ray Salvadori famously said: "Give me Goodwood on a summer's day, and you can forget the rest of the world.' At his year's Goodwood Revival summer seemed like a distant memory, especially during the first two and a half days. Heavy rain, particularly on Friday and Sunday morning, provided the drivers and riders for quite a challenge but also made for spectacular sights. As always, the rain did not dampen the spirits at Goodwood and the 26th edition saw some superb racing despite but also thanks to the treacherous conditions.
In addition to the racing, there were special parades marking 80 years of D-Day, 75 years of the Jaguar XK engine and the 60th anniversary of John Surtees winning the Formula 1 World Championship. On Saturday and Sunday morning, we were also treated to an air display featuring a Spitfire, Hurricane and Thunderbolt.
Our photographers braved the conditions to capture all the highlights in this race-by-race 220-shot gallery.

Racing into twilight
The Goodwood Revival Friday is traditionally reserved for timed practice with the action concluded by a one-hour, two-driver race into the sunset. This year, the Sussex Trophy for large displacement sports cars of the second of the 1950s served as the curtain raiser. Although the rain had stopped, there was no sunset this time round. The race was nevertheless spectacular with a proper David vs Goliath vibe. A brace of Lotus 15s took on Jaguar XK and Chevrolet V8 engined machinery. Andy Willis and Rob Hall started from pole position in a Lotus 15, followed by three Listers. In the race, it was the 15 shared by Andrew Smith and Oliver Bryant that worked its way up the order from a ninth starting position. They scored a commanding victory with a 46-second lead over the Lister Costin Jaguar shared by John Spiers and Nigel Greensall.
On Saturday, the evening race was the 45-minute Stirling Moss Memorial Trophy. Hot favourites were bona fide legends Dario Franchitti and Jimmie Johnson, who shared an Aston Martin DB4 GT. It did not really go their way in qualifying as Johnson spun off and went backwards in the barriers. Overnight repairs did allow them to start, from the fourth row on the grid. Keen to make good on his mistake, Johnson literally stormed to the front, overtaking seven cars on the opening lap and then grabbing the lead on the second. He gave Franchitti a relatively easy job over the mandatory stop with Spiers and Greensall finishing a distant second again, this time sharing an early Shelby Cobra.

Parades
At the 1948 London Auto Show, Jaguar introduced the XK120. Powering this two-seater sports car was the all-new 'XK' straight-six engine, which was designed from scratch by a team lead by William Heynes. It would go on to power a large number of Jaguar production cars between 1949 and 1986. Crucially, it was also the driving force behind the company's racing successes with the C-Type, D-Type and E-Type. To mark the 75th anniversary of the XK engine entering production, a colourful mix of machinery powered by the legendary straight-six was paraded around the track all three days. These included numerous very important Jaguar competition cars and also racing cars from other manufacturers like Cooper and Lister powered by the XK.
The second parade of the weekend celebrated the career of the late John Surtees and in particular his 1964 Formula 1 World Championship win for Ferrari. This made the Englishman the very first and, to date, only person to win World Championships on two and four wheels. The parade included some famous motorcycles from his first career, the cars he raced for the likes of Ferrari and Lola, and also the Surtees single-seaters that he built during the 1970s.

RAC Tourist Trophy
The blue ribband race of the Goodwood Revival Meeting is the Royal Automobile Club Tourist Trophy Celebration. This one-hour, two-driver race is held for mid-1960s, closed-cockpit GT cars like Shelby Cobras and Jaguar E-Types. The cars' owners are joined by hugely accomplished professionals that this year included the likes of Tom Kristensen, Andre Lotterer, Andy Priaulx, Romain Dumas, Dario Franchitti, Emanuele Pirro, Jochen Mass and also current BTCC rivals Jake Hill and Tom Ingram. Qualifying was split into two sessions, the second of which was relatively dry. Fastest of all were Adrian and Harrison Newey in the former's very special Jaguar E-Type Lightweight. After the start, it was the Shelby Cobra shared by Dario Franchitti and Andrew Smith that emerged in the lead with the Jaguar that had started from pole slipping down the order with a mis-fire. Behind them, Olly Bryant was working his way up the order from the back of the grid in the Cobra he shared with Jake Hill. Bryant was all the way up to second before making the mandatory pit-stop. Hill continued the progress and eventually passed the Jaguar E-Type shared by Alex Brundle and Richard Kent to take the lead on lap 21. Behind him, his BTCC rival Tom Ingram was making inroads with the TVR Griffith 400 that was started by Mike Whitaker. By lap 34 of 39, the two tin-top racers were nose to tail and despite Hill's best efforts it was Ingram who just got the better to score a spectacular win by just four tenths of a second. Classified third were early leaders Franchitti and Smith in the Cobra that had won the TT back in 2022.

Further highlights
Thanks to the treacherous conditions, none of the races during the 2024 Goodwood Revival were a foregone conclusion. The competitors in the Earl of March Trophy for 500cc Formula 3 cars got the worst of the weather on Sunday morning. Completing just five laps before the race was red flagged, it was the appropriately named Tom Waterfield that won in his Norton engined Cooper.
Particularly brave were the drivers in the Whitsun Trophy for big-banger sports cars of the 1960s. It was so wet in qualifying that Alex Brundle later noted that he had never dared to go full throttle throughout the session in the Lola T70 he drove. Starting third in another Lola T70, it was was Olly Bryant who scored a victory in dry-ish conditions on Saturday afternoon. Having also won the Sussex Trophy and coming a close second in the RAC TT, Bryant was deservedly named Driver of the Meeting and presented with a Rolex Oyster Perpetual Datejust.
With the dust of the RAC TT barely settled, racing resumed with the Glover Trophy for 1.5-litre Formula 1 cars. With qualifying held in very wet conditions, the grid was hardly representative. The race certainly was, with Andy Middlehurst in a Lotus 25 just beating Joe Colasacco in an ex-John Surtees Ferrari 1512 F1 after qualifying 5th and 14th respectively.

Give me Goodwood on any day
If anything the 26th annual Goodwood Revival Meeting proved Roy Salvadori wrong. A summer's day is certainly not required for Goodwood to thoroughly entertain. The spectators that braved the conditions will have certainly enjoyed the spectacle on the track. Deserving a commendation as well were the crew that ensured that the grass fields used for parking remained accessible throughout the weekend despite all the rain. All of the above and much more has been captured in our exclusive 220-shot gallery.