Formula 1’s got a rare blank space on the calendar this weekend, but the paddock isn’t exactly taking a breather. A sizeable chunk of the grid is heading to Sussex for the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where the sport’s current stars, famous machinery and a few carefully choreographed marketing moments will be squeezed into 1.16 miles of unforgiving tarmac.
Goodwood has always been a little different to the usual F1 circus: less protocol, more proximity, and a refreshing absence of lap time theatre. But don’t mistake it for a casual garden party. The hillclimb remains a proper test — narrow, fast, cambered in all the wrong places — and teams treat the event as a high-value showcase because it puts cars and drivers within arm’s reach of fans in a way modern grands prix simply can’t.
The headline draw in 2026 is Adrian Newey taking to the hill in the public debut of the Red Bull RB17 hypercar — his “final Red Bull design”, and the sort of moment Goodwood exists for. It’s theatre with genuine technical gravity: a designer whose work has shaped eras of F1 turning up to drive a clean-sheet performance car in front of a crowd that knows exactly what it’s looking at.
Red Bull’s presence doesn’t stop there. Isack Hadjar is confirmed for the event, with Yuki Tsunoda attending as a reserve driver. Racing Bulls will have Arvid Lindblad and Liam Lawson on site too, keeping the Red Bull pipeline very visibly in the shop window. In a year where every driver market whisper gets amplified, Goodwood is the kind of place where conversations happen in the open — smiling for cameras while people quietly count who’s spending time with whom.
There’s plenty of current-grid star power beyond the Red Bull camp. Kimi Antonelli, Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto are on the Thursday attendee list, while Lando Norris is set to drive McLaren’s 2023 car, the MCL60, over the weekend. Williams and Aston Martin are also bringing “a significant presence” across the four days, which typically means a blend of current personnel, heritage cars and sponsor-facing set pieces.
For the fans, the appeal is the mix: cars and motorcycles from the past, present and future taking turns up the hill in show runs before Sunday’s Shoot-Out turns it into something closer to a time-attack. The Shoot-Out is where the margins matter and where Goodwood’s friendly chaos briefly tightens into something a bit sharper.
The record book tells the story of how the event has evolved. Nick Heidfeld’s 41.6s run in the McLaren MP4/13 stood for years after 1999 — the kind of number that felt untouchable until outright performance took a different path. Then in 2022, Max Chilton reset the benchmark in the electric McMurtry Spéirling fan car, underlining that Goodwood rewards whatever philosophy produces the most usable grip and acceleration between those close-set bales.
McLaren, as ever, will lean into its history alongside the modern stuff, marking the 50th anniversary of James Hunt’s 1976 title. Goodwood’s become one of the few places where teams can celebrate their past without it feeling like a nostalgia exercise; it lands because the machinery is fired up, moving, loud, and doing what it was built to do.
For anyone planning to follow it properly, Thursday’s timetable is packed early and stays busy. The Duke of Richmond formally opens proceedings at 9:00am alongside the hillclimb action, with the Forest Rally Stage running demos from the same time. The first hillclimb batches roll from 9:45am, and the day weaves between themed runs, manufacturer “experiential” slots and set-piece moments in the Fan Zone.
If you’re tracking the most F1-relevant appearances on Thursday, the Fan Zone schedule has team moments with Alpine at 12:20pm (Gasly) and Mercedes-AMG at 2:45pm (Antonelli). The hill itself cycles through everything from “The Rivals – Epic Racing Duels” in the morning to “Forza Ferrari, Winning Formula and F1 Teams” at 2:35pm, before Americana and later supercar runs round out the afternoon.
Goodwood isn’t about proving a point on a stopwatch — not for F1 teams, anyway. It’s about presence: putting drivers where people can actually see them, letting cars do something visceral, and giving the sport a heartbeat on a weekend without a grand prix. And with Newey climbing into the RB17 for its first public run, this year’s Festival has a centrepiece that’s more than just spectacle. It’s a reminder that in a sport obsessed with what’s next, the people who shape the next thing still matter.
