Damon Hill is set to get his moment in the Goodwood spotlight this summer, with the 2026 Festival of Speed planning a formal celebration of the 30th anniversary of his Formula 1 world title.
Hill will be honoured across the event’s 9–12 July run at the Goodwood Estate in Sussex, with organisers confirming he’ll be reunited with several of the cars that shaped his F1 career. The centrepiece, fittingly, won’t just be the machinery: Hill is also scheduled to appear for an interview on the balcony of Goodwood House on Saturday 11 July, the sort of stage Goodwood reserves for the names it considers part of its own fabric.
That last point matters here. Hill isn’t being parachuted in as an anniversary act. He’s been woven into Goodwood’s modern history since the very beginning, serving as a Festival of Speed patron since its inaugural event in 1993 and remaining a regular presence at both the Festival and the Revival. In an era where “motorsport festival” has become a catch-all label, Goodwood still feels like it’s run on memory and access as much as spectacle — and Hill has been one of the constants.
“I’m very much looking forward to celebrating the 30th anniversary of my World Championship at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this year,” Hill said, leaning into the personal significance of the venue for his family as much as the professional milestone.
Goodwood, he noted, has “always been a special place for the Hill family,” tracing it back to 1955 when his parents travelled to nearby Bognor Regis for their honeymoon because his father, Graham Hill, was racing the Nine Hour event that same weekend. It’s the kind of detail that lands differently at Goodwood than it would in a standard PR release — because the whole weekend trades on that through-line between generations, eras and disciplines.
Hill also pointed to the crowd as a big part of the pull. “Goodwood’s fans are some of the most passionate in the world, and it will be a real privilege to share my anniversary with such an appreciative audience,” he said.
Event organiser The Duke of Richmond framed the tribute as overdue. Hill has often been on hand to support Goodwood’s celebrations of other drivers and moments, he said, so this year the spotlight will be “deservedly” on the 1996 champion.
“I couldn’t be happier that Damon is joining us at this year’s Festival of Speed to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his World Championship,” he said. “He has been a phenomenal supporter of everything we do at Goodwood… Too often he is here to lend his support as we celebrate other people, so I am delighted that this time the spotlight will be deservedly on him.”
Goodwood hasn’t yet detailed exactly which cars will join Hill for the tribute, promising more information closer to the event, but the concept is classic Festival of Speed: a driver’s story told not through a museum rope-line, but by firing the cars up, putting them in front of people, and letting the hillclimb do the rest.
And in 2026 — with F1 entering a new set of regulations and a fresh technical identity — there’s something neatly timed about pausing to honour a champion from a different kind of championship fight. Hill’s title is already three decades in the rear-view mirror, but the point of Goodwood has never been to treat history as distant. It treats it as present tense.
