As months go, this was one we’ll never forget. The pages were flowing and the deadline was looming as usual when we heard Bill Boddy had died. We’d had some warning that the sad day was coming, but still it shook us all. WB, our founder editor, was 98 years old. As someone said, that’s a lot of laps and it was a more than a decent stint. But he was so vital to this magazine for so long, and to the whole automotive world for that matter, that his passing was always going to hit us hard, no matter how old he might be.

Bill had already filed his stories for the September issue, which goes on sale this week, and we thought it fitting to run them as usual. Elsewhere, we cleared some space and deputy editor Gordon Cruickshank set to work polishing the obituary he always knew we’d have to publish one day.

For Gordon, this was a busy and difficult time. Thankfully, he’d already finished his fabulous cover story on taking a factory semi-Lightweight Jaguar E-type and Stirling Moss’s famous Ferrari 250SWB to the Scottish highlands, for the (significant) pleasure of modern Jaguar design guru Ian Callum. Now he prepared to pay his respects to WB, the man he had worked for and with for 30 years. As we passed The Bod’s final pages, we both paused for a moment. It felt odd that we’d never be doing this again.

You might have read obituaries in the UK’s broadsheet papers, but if you’ve read Motor Sport for some time and the WB initials mean anything to you, please do take the time to read our tribute. Gordon, you’ve done him proud.

The cover story took a lot of organising and there was a collective sigh of relief when it all came together so beautifully. The idea sprung from our old 20 Questions road car column, which ran last year. Ian Callum had been quizzed, and when asked what would be his dream drive, he replied 250SWB on the fantastic roads surrounding Ullapool.

A few weeks later, Gordon received a message from his friend Clive Beecham who happens to own the 250SWB – the Rob Walker Moss car that Stirling twirled so effectively around Goodwood and such during 1961. Clive said to Gordon, “if Ian would like to do it, he can”. It was an offer Ian was not about to turn down – even if our scheduling meant a clash with the launch of his new Jaguar C-X75 supercar, itself a significant day in the history of his beloved employer.

In this E-type 50th anniversary year, we knew this was the perfect opportunity to get a Lightweight involved. Comparing the two standout GT cars of this – and any other – generation just seemed obvious. Oh, and I guess I don’t really need to tell you this, but Ian had a ball…

Fortunately for Gordon, he didn’t have to write everything in the issue. Our regular team also pitched in with some great stories. Editor-in-chief Nigel Roebuck reflects on a great British GP and the Indy 500 celebrations at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, and also discusses modern F1 with a typically forthright Niki Lauda; Andrew Frankel delivers an exclusive track test in the super-rare and very special Mercedes-Benz W165 Silver Arrow (see below); and Simon Taylor meets saloon and sports car ace John Fitzpatrick for lunch. I remember squelching around a sopping Brands Hatch in 1983 watching him win the 1000Kms in his J David Porsche 956, sharing with Derek Warwick. It was the last big win of an amazing career, and when he met Simon the stories flowed thick and fast.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Fitz caps a special issue of Motor Sport. But it’s WB who, for me, has made it one that will always be a landmark. An era is at an end.

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I was surprised by my reaction to the news that Sir Stirling Moss has hung up the Herbert Johnson after 63 years of racing. I thought I would be sad, for truly an era has ended. But I’m not: I’m overjoyed that Stirling has walked away on his own terms and in a manner of his choosing. A career that so nearly took him from us on more than one occasion has concluded in the happiest way.

Retirement from racing, I know, is something that has been on Stirling’s mind for a while. I think the only fear he ever had behind a wheel was that the day would come when he might hold someone up or get in their way and now it never will. I imagine it has not even occurred to him that almost any one of us would pay a sizeable sum to follow Stirling Moss around a track.

Still the decision to quit must have been terribly tough. More than anyone else I have met save Senna, Stirling is defined by his sport. They even called him Mr Motor Racing for goodness sake. I remember talking to Tony Brooks about why he never looked back after quitting in 1961 and he said simply “racing was only ever going to be part of my life and that part was over. Unlike Stirling: racing is his life”.

How will he take to retirement? Well, he might have retired from racing, but I imagine the rest of his life will continue at the same frenetic pace. He will be as in demand as ever and I cannot see him withdrawing from public life for a moment. And I look forward to seeing what kind of celebration of his career will be staged at the Goodwood Festival of Speed next month.

In the meantime, perhaps you’d care to share your best Stirling moment with us? Mine is watching him coax a Lotus Cortina into a drift through Goodwood’s Fordwater kink at a hundred and goodness knows how many miles per hour. It was pure mastery from a man who, at the time, was just a few days short of his 77^th birthday.

Stirling, I’m not going to say we’ll miss you because I’m sure you’re not going anywhere. Instead I’ll just say thanks for everything and hope to see you, if not actually on, then at least at the track for many, many years to come.

Andrew Frankel

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Gasps in the RAC Club last night at the annual Motor Racing Legends prize-giving. Its new Stirling Moss Trophy had got off to a great start in its inaugural year, the series victory finally going to Alan and Jason Minshaw for multiple successes in their Birdcage Maserati. But what was the trophy actually to be?

Series organiser Duncan Wiltshire thought it best to consult the great man himself, who duly dispatched Lady Susie to rummage around in the cupboard under the stairs for something suitable. What she returned with was the trophy given to Stirling for winning the 1955 British Grand Prix. Just think about that for a moment: not only is the trophy stunningly beautiful, it was awarded on the occasion of not only Sir Stirling’s first World Championship Grand Prix win, but the first time a British driver had won his home Grand Prix. What a thing to have your name on…

The evening also served as a great curtain-raiser for the fast-approaching new season. Despite apparently wall-to-wall bad news on the economic front, historic racing – or at least most parts of it – appears to be in joyously rude health. Grids are not just full, but full of great cars. There are more series than ever to take part in, with Duncan’s Group A Touring Car series kicking off this year and a whole world of relatively affordable opportunity opening up courtesy of Julius Thurgood’s two newly announced Historic Racing Drivers’ Club series. Throw in the first-ever historic festival to be held at Donington to go with the world-class festivals already held at Goodwood, Silverstone and Brands Hatch, plus the delicious prospect of Britain’s first-ever historic 24-hour race next year, and you can see that for anyone with any interest in the sport we really have never had it so good.

Andrew Frankel

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I have been out on the road. Not having as much fun as Jack Kerouac, but nonetheless an interesting week or so. The final leg of my journey took me – via London, Wales and Littlehampton – to Goodwood where, as some of you know, I have spent a large part of my life.

On this occasion I went to see Jenson Button. Now you might imagine that a Formula 1 driver would have his feet up at home this week, that’s if he’s not testing the new Pirellis in Abu Dhabi. Wrong. Former World Champions are always on the go, their highly remunerative contracts requiring them to spend time with sponsors and other important benefactors. This is particularly true at McLaren, a team that takes its ‘sponsorship management’ very seriously.

So this week Jenson dropped in to Goodwood for a private day for title sponsor Vodafone. His task? To give its guests a ride to remember. And boy, did he deliver. It was bucketing down when JB took a silver Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren out onto a very wet Goodwood circuit, the big car searching for grip between the puddles. But a bit of precipitation has never bothered Button. This is a mighty car, the result of the combined technologies of McLaren and Mercedes-Benz, built in Portsmouth and Woking. Big 5.4-litre V8 engine, automatic gearbox and rear-wheel drive. Just right for thrilling those lucky enough to be his passengers on what the team calls its day of ‘hot laps’.

Were there gasps and shrieks from the passenger seat, I wondered? “No, but there were from me,” quipped JB. “It is very wet out there, almost too wet really.” Button is super-fit, relaxed, cheerful and charming, a man upon whom the World Championship has been sitting very comfortably. People take to him, especially the ladies. On this form, it’s not hard to see why. This was a day to show just why he is where he is, and you get the impression that McLaren is very pleased indeed with its new boy.

I watched in awe as the car rumbled round, waiting to interview him for a Goodwood DVD proclaiming the joys of events at Lord March’s Sussex estate. JB drove Prost’s McLaren TAG at the Festival of Speed this year and described it as the best day of his life. The rain fell incessantly as JB growled around in the Merc. Even he was lifting for the ultra-quick Fordwater corner, such was the volume of water. The silver machine is worth damn near £300,000 and there’s no point in frightening people.

The following day the 2008 World Champion flew in to have his turn. Luckily for Lewis Hamilton and his guests, it was sunny and dry. From where I was standing this looked like a happy family, a Vodafone McLaren-Mercedes team very much at ease with itself despite a poor year by its standards. You can be sure that noses are already on the grindstone at Woking…

Life, as Jean-Paul Sartre suggested, is the eternal imponderable. And life on the road allows for plenty of time to ponder. If Bahrain seems just too far way, worry not, they will be out testing new cars in February. Lewis and Jenson can’t wait to get their hands on MP4-26, to renew their friendly but serious rivalry. Meanwhile they will have their holidays, do their bit for the sponsors, and return to a new car, new Pirellis and a new season.

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OK, I’m back.

Apologies for the silence but it proved to be somewhat tricky to send dispatches from the Grande Festival de Classicos at Portimao, this being due to the internet service suffering from intermittent failures without any warning. We, that’s the man from Autosport and I, considered demanding our money back, but we’d had such a good time at this terrific historic event in Portugal that we struggled on in silence.

Thankfully we were able to file our stories on Sunday night. Otherwise the editor in London would not have been impressed. Suffice to say, this is one of the highlights of the historic calendar, along with Goodwood, Spa-Francorchamps and Monza. It is also a highlight for those who participate for two main reasons.

One, most racers like to play golf, and the Algarve coast appears to have more golf courses per square mile than anywhere else in the world. Two, the Portimao circuit is a modern classic. Designed by former bike and car racer Paulo Pinheiro, it is a spectacular challenge for drivers and a wonderful place to watch. There’s a full report in the next edition of the magazine but I do urge you to get to this event if you can.

All in all, quite a weekend for us racing fans. In the media centre at Portimao we could watch MotoGP in Australia, DTM in Germany and the Rally of Scotland – simultaneously on three separate screens… what a remarkable world we live in today.

And that’s not to mention all the football. Not a good weekend for my aforementioned colleague and I. He being a Liverpool fan and I being a Manchester United fan, it would have all been rather depressing had we not had to go outside and write about some great motor racing

There was much talk in the paddock about Mark Webber going to Ferrari next year and about how Valentino Rossi will struggle to get to grips with the Ducati. I’m not saying the former is true, and I’d be surprised by the latter, but both are good things to gossip about at the bar after a day’s racing.

Rumours are rumours until they come to pass. Back in reality, Skoda did another great job in Scotland with yet another win for the talented Juha Hanninen who’s had a fantastic year in the highly effective Fabia. Guy Wilks was fast too, but failed to get to the finish. Only nine cars got to the end of this extremely tough rally. And what about Casey Stoner? A much-needed boost for Ducati and certainly Mr Rossi will have taken note of Stoner’s pace. Not one of the greatest MotoGP events but nonetheless an interesting result, Stoner and Ducati having been much stronger in the last two races. And the win moves the Aussie into third in the championship with two races to go, just eight points ahead of you-know-who…

We move on this weekend to what will be a very intriguing Grand Prix in Korea. The fascination is partly because nobody’s been there before, so all the pre-race data will have come from simulators, and partly because it will be interesting to see just who works best under the mounting pressure. The wire is fast approaching and this season will go all the way. Now is the time to see who can handle what is a very tense situation. Will the Red Bulls get tangled up in internal strife and allow Fernando Alonso to come through? Will the McLarens come good just in time?

These and other questions will be answered by Sunday night. But we won’t have all the answers for another few weeks. Ah, the anticipation… just how racing should be, and has been all season long.

Back soon with more ramblings as winter lurks on the edges of autumn here in England. And it could be an interesting winter. Will F1 testing be restored? Possibly. Will F2 champion Dean Stoneman get a drive at Williams? Will Webber go to Ferrari? Will Michael Schumacher be sufficiently impressed with the new Pirellis and his new Mercedes-Benz?

I’m not making any predictions. Not yet, anyway.

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Were I to ask you to name the most desirable car ever built, what would you say? Your answer would of course be totally biased towards your own tastes: classic or modern, road car or racer. Where you’re from might be a factor and perhaps your age would play a part, too.

Polls aren’t really Motor Sport’s thing, but I’m hardly going out on a limb to predict that if we were to run one, Ferraris would feature heavily in the desirability stakes. And of those Ferraris, one in particular would be in with a shout to top the list.

The 250GTO matches performance with beauty like few other cars, both on the road and on the race track. Enzo’s masterpiece? By price alone, you’d have to say yes (this summer radio DJ Chris Evans is believed to have paid £12 million for one). But it’s about much more than money. You know what I mean, don’t you?

All 39 that were built (in two different body configurations) are special, but the one that graces Motor Sport’s cover this month is particularly memorable – partly because it’s that pasty shade of green!

Ahead of the Goodwood Revival, Andrew Frankel was lucky enough to achieve a lifetime’s ambition and plant himself behind the steering wheel of the newly-restored British Racing Partnership 250GTO, complete with its tartan nose strip. Chassis 3505GT will always be intrinsically linked to the Sussex circuit, thanks to Innes Ireland who used it to win the 1962 TT, Britain’s biggest sports car race back then. A fitting result, given that the man who should have been driving it had ended his career against the bank at St Mary’s earlier that spring.

To accompany the 250GTO in the October issue, dep ed Gordon Cruickshank tells the tale of the team, BRP, talking to the men behind the green, Ken Gregory and Tony Robinson. It’s a tale of corporate sponsorship, nervous breakdowns and jealousy, set against the backdrop of the team’s Chelsea home in Lots Road. Hang on, that’s where we’re based. I thought it sounded familiar…

In stark contrast to all this history, Nigel Roebuck talks to Robert Kubica and enjoys what he hears. When I first read this interview it occurred to me that Poland’s Formula 1 star is something of a throwback to eras past. His no-nonsense approach, deadpan acceptance of danger and pure love of driving would have made him a contender in any era. This guy deserves to add to his paltry tally of one GP win and once he is given a competitive car, he undoubtedly will.

‘Lunch with…’ is another corker this month, but I’m particularly biased. I was a junior reporter when gravel-voiced Irishman Martin Donnelly was establishing his single-seater team in Formula Vauxhall. I used to phone him every week for a gossip, but he was never my first call on a Monday morning. I’d have to make sure I had something juicy to tell him first. “Got any dirt ’n filth,” he’d rasp at me. If I didn’t, it would be a very short conversation.

I was at Druids when Donnelly won his very first Formula 3000 race, at Brands Hatch in 1988 following Johnny Herbert’s leg-shattering crash. In the sadness of that day, Martin’s victory was understandably overlooked, but it was clear even then that he was a contender for great things – only for his own horror crash two years later to rob him of all that promise. His story is inspiring – and despite the sadness, very funny.

I should probably also mention the BMW motorcycle test that appears in this issue, but given the ‘welcome’ our new road car section received last month, I do so with care! Two-wheel road tests won’t appear in every issue, but they will from time to time when we have an interesting story to tell. Lest we forget, Denis Jenkinson loved bikes as much as cars, and didn’t think twice when it came to writing about them in MS from time to time. We’re looking at the motorcycle world with the same appreciative and open-minded attitude.

Oh, and my vote for the most desirable car in history? Well, it’ll always be racing cars first for me. So I’ll go for the 1975 Ferrari 312T. What about you?

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

I have been asked to get back to the blogging, from which I have been absent these past weeks. So here I am. Where have I been hiding? All over the place actually, as is my wont. I was set to take a holiday – my usual lolling around on the Ionian island of Corfu – when I became embroiled in an event called Vintage at Goodwood.

This has little to do with cars and a lot to do with music, although there were some lovely cars there including spectacular 1950s hot rods and Ford Mustangs. I have long coveted a good, genuine Mustang. This new event was a huge success and, as Bob Marley famously said, “one good thing about music is that when it hits you, you feel no pain”. Not like motor racing.

Now I am preparing for the Barum Rally in the Czech Republic and a visit to the Skoda Museum. Then it’s back here for the Goodwood Revival, which has little to do with music but a lot to do with some wonderful racing cars. And between these two, I’ll be going to the World Championship finals of the F1 stock cars to understand a bit more about why people go blasting round ovals in the dark in close company with some very high-powered, very dented cars. This season the championship is as close as it gets, as close as the championship for Grand Prix cars. But they’re spending thousands, not millions.

After an enforced (by the FIA) two-week shutdown, invented to cut costs, we are now approaching Spa and the second half of the Formula 1 season. Who will come back on top? Red Bull surely, or will they? McLaren is well equipped to take the title, both technically and financially. Ferrari is very cross with itself, and everybody else, and will return with Alonso firmly favoured. It can’t get worse for Mercedes, can it? It can, but it probably won’t because they’ll be terrified of further shame. My prediction? Hamilton will be World Champion – just – with Vettel very large in his silver mirrors.

On the subject of Grand Prix racing, the paddock will be well represented at the Revival, where Adrian Newey will share his rapid E-type Jaguar with Bobby Rahal in the TT Celebration race. Also out on this demanding circuit will be Christian Horner in the St Mary’s saloon car race, an encounter guaranteed to loud cheers from the grandstands. Red Bull boss Dieter Mateschitz is clearly a generous and spirited man, allowing two of his key people to take part in this spectacular meeting. Both Karun Chandhok and Bruno Senna are determined to get in on the act as well, possibly relishing the prospect of racing further up the field. And I hear Gerhard Berger will be there this year. Stand by for mischievous humour and impressive lap times. They don’t forget how to do it.

Finally, keep a close eye on the Formula 2 series. There is a distinctly feisty battle being fought out between Jolyon Palmer and Dean Stoneman, a fierce rivalry which will see one of them win not only the title but also a test drive in the 2010 Williams F1 car. Let’s hope it’s a fair and sporting contest.

Autumn may be on the horizon, but there’s a huge amount for us fans to look forward to. Back soon.

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The guests of honour at this weekend’s Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Laguna Seca are Sir Stirling Moss and Dan Gurney. The irrepressible Moss will make his return to US competition driving his own Porsche RS-61 following last spring’s terrible elevator accident, while Gurney and a fleet of All-American Racer’s Eagles – from F1 to Indycars, Can-Am and IMSA GTP cars – will be celebrated in a private reception at the track on Saturday evening.

Without doubt Moss and Gurney number among the greatest drivers from the 1950s-60s. They were team-mates in Lucky Casner’s Camoradi ‘birdcage’ Maserati in 1960, scoring a classic victory in miserably wet conditions in the Nürburgring 1000Kms. But Stirling and Dan were also fierce competitors in F1, long-distance sports cars and American sports car racing. Moss introduced the Lotus 19 to North America by winning the inaugural professional race at Mosport in June ’61, and that autumn Dan gave Frank Arciero’s Lotus 19 its debut and battled with Stirling in the sports car races at Riverside and Laguna Seca.

Of course, Stirling’s career was cut short by his crash at Goodwood in 1962, but at that time Dan was beginning to expand his horizons to become a team owner and innovator of the first order. It began when Dan shoehorned a Ford V8 into his Lotus 19, marking of the start of the Anglo-American chassis/engine combination that blossomed into Group 7 in Europe and triggered the creation in 1966 of the legendary Can-Am series.

At the time Gurney was hatching the first of his remarkable line of Eagle F1 and Indycars. The 1967 Eagle-Weslake V12 is reckoned by many to be one of the most beautiful and effective F1 cars of all time, and the 1972 Eagle-turbo Offy dominated Indycar racing through the early ’70s. In Jerry Grant and Bobby Unser’s hands the Eagle became the first car to lap a closed circuit at over 200mph.

Two of Dan’s proudest creations were the 1981 Eagle-Chevy Indycar and the Eagle Toyota GTP car from 1992-93. The ‘81 Eagle was designed by Trevor Harris and was a ground-effect car of a different colour, creating its downforce in a manner unlike the Lotus 79 and its followers. Harris and Gurney called the system ‘Boundary Layer Adhesion Technology’, and the different-looking car proved very quick, with Mike Mosley scoring a famous victory from the back of the grid at Milwaukee in ‘81 and Geoff Brabham running away from the field at Riverside until the car suffered a transmission failure.

The other thing about the ‘81 Eagle is that it was powered by an all-aluminium Chevy V8 built and developed at AAR’s shop in California. It was a classic case of Gurney pursuing his own path against the dominant turbo Cosworths of the day and a true expression of his American hot-rodder’s heart. Fans loved the car and engine, but over the next few years CART’s team owners, in their wisdom, decided to restrict and effectively eliminate both car and engine from the rulebook. Silly boys…

In closing, I have to add that I rate Dan as America’s greatest racing man. Why? Because he won in everything he raced – F1, Indycars, Can-Am, long-distance sports cars and NASCAR – and also enjoyed a rare second act as one of the sport’s most accomplished and innovative team owners and car builders. On Saturday evening, wherever you may be, raise a glass to toast Moss and Gurney for their many achievements as both racers and gentlemen.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Evolution, not revolution. It’s something of a mantra in motor racing circles, as teams refine and improve the breed. In the Motor Sport office this month, I caught myself quietly muttering it too, as the September issue began to take shape (I don’t think anyone heard me, which is probably just as well).

You see, we’ve made another tweak to the magazine as we strive to add greater depth and diversity. Nothing too dramatic, you understand, and certainly not a departure from tradition. In fact, you could describe it as an echo of times past.

Road cars always featured prominently in the ‘Green ’un’, thanks to the road tests and commentaries provided by the, er, independently-minded missives from editor Bill Boddy. He didn’t pull his punches when delivering a verdict. Today, we’ve continued to dip a toe into the industry waters thanks to the columns and tests of another forthright ex-editor, Andrew Frankel. But now we’ve dived back in head-first, with full commitment!

No more token efforts. Now the road car industry has its own section within the magazine, as Andrew guides us through the latest happenings, events and – most importantly – significant cars on the market. Each month, he’ll be cutting through the PR-speak to explain what is going on in the world of road cars: who is doing what, who is saying what – and what you should consider driving.

This month, Andrew kicks off by delivering his verdict on Goodwood’s first Moving Motor Show, finds out whether the new Mercedes-Benz SLS lives up to its classic ‘Gullwing’ forefather and bombards Bentley’s head man Dr Ulrich Eichorn for our new feature ‘20 Questions’.

And that’s not all. He’s been a busy boy. We also sent Andrew to McLaren to uncover exactly how Formula 1 thinking has influenced and shaped the stunning new MP4-12C road car. Want to know how motor racing brilliance can feed into the real world in the 21st century? Look no further than our cover story.

If you’re reading this and wondering what’s happened to the usual mix of racing stories past and present, never fear! Where else can you read about life in a Le Mans team, Ferrari P4 Can-Am cars, what Mika Häkkinen talks about over lunch, how F1 teams hit the track in Abu Dhabi – five days after racing at Interlagos, what Stuart Turner remembers about a colourful career in rallying… and why Nigel Roebuck found a kindred spirit in smokin’ daredevil Patrick Depailler?

You know the answer. So lock the door, turn off the phone and lose yourself in Motor Sport – a world with a proper sense of perspective.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

I wonder if, like me, you are partial to the music of Frank Zappa? In one of his more philosophical moments, Zappa opined that the mind is like a parachute. It only works if it is opened. In August 1970 I travelled to the Isle of Wight Festival with Zappa, assigned to this task by the local newspaper. This ‘happening’ came between the Grands Prix in Austria and Italy.

Leaving aside the fun and frolics of the Isle of Wight, it’s interesting to look back on what was a highly charged season, brutally fractured by the death of Jochen Rindt at Monza in September. Already we’d lost Piers Courage at Zandvoort and Bruce McLaren in a test session at Goodwood. It seemed it couldn’t get any worse, but it did. The 1970 season is an example, too, of why we should keep an open mind. And this applies as much today as it has done over the decades.

If you recall, the mesmeric Rindt dominated proceedings, winning five races through the summer, from Monaco to the Hockenheimring. The only glitch came at Spa when the Cosworth in his Lotus 49C let go after 10 laps. Two weeks later Rindt, now in Chapman’s innovative 72, won the first of four on the trot. The championship, we thought, was surely his and deservedly so. But motor racing, as we have seen again this year, is full of surprises. Some happy, some sad.

All in all, a momentous year. Jacky Ickx was back at Ferrari after a year away at Brabham and by mid-summer the glorious 312B was coming on song, Ickx winning in Austria, Canada and Mexico. But it was not enough. Despite the tragedy of Monza, the mercurial Rindt could not be caught and he remains the sport’s only posthumous World Champion.

Intriguingly, if Ickx had won the penultimate round at Watkins Glen in October he would have beaten Rindt to the title. But it wasn’t to be. In a dramatic race that typified the season Ickx duly started from pole but this day the Ferrari was no match for the other man on the front row, Jackie Stewart in the new Tyrrell 001. Stewart led easily while Ickx pitted just after half-distance with a broken fuel line, returning in 12th place and storming back to a superb fourth by the flag. Meanwhile, a minute in the lead, Stewart retired, the Cosworth leaking oil. Who came through to win and wreck any hopes of a world title for Ickx? A young Brazilian called Emerson Fittipaldi in a Lotus, in only his fourth Grand Prix.

You needed a very open mind to keep up with the scriptwriter in 1970, and a strong stomach. It was both thrilling and awful, the sport at its best and worst. And it wasn’t over yet. Ickx won a chaotic final race in Mexico where spectators climbed the guardrails, stood trackside, and the maddest ran across the circuit itself. Eventually a dog escaped and ran into the path of Stewart’s Tyrrell, damaging the suspension and forcing the Scot to retire. Ickx came through to win and the 1971 Mexican Grand Prix was removed from the calendar.

Triple World Champion Jack Brabham hung up his helmet, having started his final season with a win in South Africa. Clay Regazzoni scored his first Grand Prix victory in a Ferrari at Monza. March arrived in Formula 1. Tyrrell built its first Grand Prix car, Stewart putting it on pole first time out in Canada. And Goodyear introduced slick tyres to the sport. What a year.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Jacky Ickx and Mario Andretti. Quite simply, two of the greatest racing drivers in motor racing history. Even their names, which carry the resonance of Grand Prix wins from a golden era, heroic sports car feats and more, are dripping with style and class.

As far as we’re aware, these two have never been interviewed together before, and yet these giants of racing formed a bond 40 years ago as team-mates at Ferrari racing in both Formula 1 and sports cars. When they joined us for our inaugural Motor Sport Hall of Fame event in February we had the perfect opportunity to reunite them – and get them talking about the Prancing Horse. The result is the cover story for the June issue of Motor Sport.

Editor-in-chief Nigel Roebuck was handed this enviable task, but it wasn’t exactly smooth running. He was made to sweat. Nigel had arranged to meet the pair in Signor Sassi, a favourite Italian restaurant, on the day of the Hall of Fame in London. Andretti had arrived from the States safe and sound the night before, but Ickx wouldn’t be so lucky.

Jacky spends much of his time in Mali these days, but he’d told us flying in from Africa would not be a problem. As it turned out, it wasn’t. But taking the short connecting trip from Brussels would be – his flight was cancelled. Typical!

I got the message in the morning and started to sweat. Jacky was one of our star guests for this special night and now I had images of him failing to make it (the message I got was that his flight was cancelled and I had images of him stranded in Africa!). But with characteristic coolness, Jacky came through for us. He jumped on the Eurostar, came straight to the restaurant and being a true gent was full of apologies (even though it wasn’t his fault, of course). Phew! The Hall of Fame was saved and I’d still get my future cover story.

Following the entertaining lunch, Nigel met up with Andretti again in Bahrain at the Grand Prix and Ickx at the Goodwood press day, topping up the material he’d already got from the two of them together. The result was 19,000 words of transcription from his Dictaphone – and he hates transcribing! I know, it’s hard to complain when you’re listening back to gems from such heroes, but we have to hand it to Nigel this month: he’s put in the hours…

Aside from Ickx and Andretti, there is an eclectic mix of stories in the new issue, from just about every era. Highlights for me include Anthony Rowlinson’s terrific interview with design genius John Barnard, Bruno Giacomelli talking to Paul Fearnley – and the photos of outlandish second-generation Can-Am cars in Gordon Kirby’s retrospective. The stars that passed through that series in the 1970s and early ’80s – including Jones, Villeneuve, Tambay, Rosberg and that man Ickx – has bestowed cult status on the era. So right up our street, then.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The highlight of my year thus far was lunch in a supermarket café. Not the gastronomy, though I did capitulate at the offer of an absurdly rich pudding, but the company I was keeping.

My friend Robert Dean is an engineer, a mechanic, a racer of vintage cars and generally one of the good eggs of our universe. By our universe, I mean that which is inhabited by those of us who are just crazy about racing cars. Or just crazy. Robert’s role in life, apart from a being a doting father, is to look after a collection of racing cars owned by one Bernard Ecclestone.

I mention this because last year in the desert of Bahrain I did two things I never imagined I would. I slid down into the cockpit of a Ferrari 312 and I perched on the seat of a BRM V16 Mk ll.

For me, these were Big Moments – not only a pleasure, but also a privilege. As a child, I watched Ken Wharton and Ron Flock hart racing this BRM at Goodwood and, while the memory is hazy, I remember the noise and I know it must have left a big impression on me. I know this because I later joined the BRM Supporters Club, proudly wearing the enamel badge at every possible opportunity. There was something about a BRM, so very British in that dark racing green, and so often the underdog until Graham Hill came along and won the World Championship in 1962. By that time you couldn’t keep me away from the racetrack.

Then there was the Ferrari, this the very car raced in 1966 by Lorenzo Banding and John Surtees. You probably remember the cockpit of the 312, that wonderful black leather cladding, and that snaking nest of white exhaust pipes on the glorious V12 engine. Take a look at pictures of Banding in this car, or Ludovico Scarfiotti (who won at Monza in ’66) and if they don’t stir your blood then you won’t get what I’m going on about. The car is so comfortable, the cockpit hugging your sides. Close your eyes and you could be coming down to the Parabolica – if you were brave enough. No belts, remember, and fuel tanks all around you. Eventually I stepped out, but I didn’t want to.

So, thanks to Mr Dean, I have taken a seat in the theatre of dreams. The point, however, of these ramblings is that it is days such as these that remind us why we fell in love with Grand Prix racing.

In recent years I have sometimes struggled to maintain my enthusiasm. They all look the same, they all sound the same. They can’t overtake each other unless there’s a thunderstorm and Lewis Hamilton has a red mist inside that yellow helmet. Wandering among the cars collected by Bernie reminded me that simplicity is good – big fat tyres, tons of power, not very much grip and lots of nice engineering that you and I can understand.

No, I am not bogged down in the past. And yes, I will be watching the Chinese Grand Prix. I’m not giving up on this thing after six decades but I do believe that something radical needs to be done to improve the sheer spectacle, the drama of motor racing at its highest level.

BRM is long gone, but there will be Ferraris on the grid in China. All is not lost.

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Thursday March 18 was a good day, with the launch of the 2010 Goodwood season in a perfect English setting.

Racing cars look so good outside Goodwood House. It just feels right. And nobody entertains with more style than the Earl of March. To get the day under way the Royal Navy brought a Lynx helicopter, proceeding to fly it backwards, sideways, every which way in a wake-up display that defied the laws of gravity. Down below they blew the dust off Ayrton Senna’s Toleman and Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren.

“Thank you all for helping us to make our events what they are today,” said Lord March, addressing the media gathered outside his home. Every year we think how will the Festival of Speed stay fresh and alive? Will the Revival continue to surprise and stimulate us? After 17 years of the Festival and 11 of the Revival it would appear there is little wrong with the formula. If it doesn’t need fixing, don’t fix it. In the background, of course, there have been changes, the Festival becoming a celebration of the motor car in all its guises rather than a hillclimb for historic racing cars, while the Revival has become a theatrical garden party with pure, full-blooded racing at its heart.

Sitting around a table on the grass outside Goodwood House at lunchtime, I spied BBC Formula 1 commentator Jonathan Legard, veteran author and journalist Maurice Hamilton, Deborah Tee (whose family once owned Motor Sport and Motoring News) and our very own Nigel Roebuck. And this is partly what makes Goodwood special. This is a place where enthusiasts gather, people who have a passion for motor racing.

Just back from Bahrain, having robustly tried to make a dull Grand Prix watchable television, Jonathan was bravely defending F1 in the aftermath of a disappointing start to the season. Maurice, celebrating his birthday with a glass of Lord March’s Veuve Clicquot, regaled us with hysterical stories from days gone by. And Nigel, muttering about the dreaded double diffusers, went off in search of Jacky Ickx to cheer himself up. Paul Ormond from Honda, which has supported the Festival since its inception, came by to tell us about the marque’s plans for Le Mans. Multiple World Champion Dougie Lampkin rode by on his trials bike, weaving his way between the tables to jump over something else. The new McLaren MP4/12C rolled in on its first public appearance, all matt black and still a work in progress.

No other event draws such a diverse and colourful collection of characters, cars, bikes and racers. If you have the passion, you will be there.

There were 80 cars at the Goodwood launch this year. Remarkably, that is more than the entry for the first ever Festival back in the summer of 1993. Down at the startline, under the budding lime trees, there were more people soaking up the sights and sounds than stood there on that June Saturday when it all began.

This year the Festival of Speed will support a charitable foundation set up by John Surtees in memory of his son Henry. The Goodwood crowd will give generously because not only do they love their sport, they care passionately about its past, present and future.

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Eddie Irvine came to the Goodwood Festival of Speed last weekend to drive a Ferrari. Nothing especially remarkable about this, you might say, but Irvine does not get out much.

Well, he goes out of course, but not so much to motor racing events since he walked away from Grand Prix racing having made a fortune and as many enemies as friends.

But that would never bother Eddie. Not much does as long as he’s having fun and making money, both of which he is very good at. In many ways, he was born too late, and should perhaps have been racing with the Hunts and Villeneuves of this world.

No, it wasn’t turning up that surprised, it was that the man seemed to be really enjoying himself back in the limelight. Wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘Who do you think you are?’ – nice irony here – he signed autographs, chatted with his many fans and swapped some good gossip with the Formula 1 fraternity.

Perhaps this was all because Irvine had been invited to drive a rather important Ferrari. This was the 312 T3, now owned by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, and built by Enzo Ferrari for Gilles Villeneuve back in 1978. At that time Irvine was just 13 years old, a schoolboy in Northern Ireland dreaming of one day becoming a racing driver. He told us at Goodwood that he remembers watching Villeneuve winning the Canadian Grand Prix in this car on television, and thinking how cool it would be to race a Ferrari. This was Villeneuve’s first Grand Prix victory, having joined Ferrari from McLaren during the winter of 1977.

The 312 T3 was in fact no match for Colin Chapman’s Lotus 79 with its ground-breaking aerodynamics and clever ‘ground effects’ engineering. But Villeneuve drove the wheels off it and this Ferrari, with its 3-litre flat-12 engine, still won five races. So, for Irvine to sit where Gilles sat, and to get a taste of what he goggled at as a boy, was an opportunity he clearly wasn’t going to pass up.

A maverick figure, not always happy to doff his cap, and a man to speak his mind, Mr Irvine was not everybody’s cup of tea as he rose to the dizzy heights of nearly winning the World Championship after team-mate Michael Schumacher crashed at Silverstone in 1999. But the Irishman was a lot more serious about his motor racing than perhaps he wanted you to know. He made that pretty clear when refusing to be rattled by Schumacher in the Japanese Grand Prix at the very beginning of his F1 career. People began to take notice.

He chose, for some reason, to wear a helmet from his Jaguar days at Goodwood. You might have expected one of his helmets from his time at Maranello. Maybe he sold them all.

The point of all this is that only at Goodwood will you find these characters. And there are just so many of them. And you can talk to them without yelling through a security fence. This year the Festival of Speed was somehow better than ever – there’s just nothing like it anywhere else in the world. If you love motor racing, it doesn’t get any better than Goodwood.

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The Goodwood Festival of Speed is one of the most important car events of the year. It attracts Formula 1 teams and drivers, fanatical historic racers and some of the most interesting cars to have ever graced a track, and everything in-between. Motor Sport was there with its video camera and spent the weekend chasing down some of the drivers…

We hope you enjoy it as much as we did…

Watch the video now (below) or watch it on YouTube

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Easter. A time for renewed hope and energy. And motor racing on Easter Monday, one of the sport’s great traditions.

For me, nothing will ever be as good as Goodwood on Easter Monday. Yes, I know we haven’t been there since 1966, but it was such a wonderful event. We went as a family, took a picnic, and sat in our usual seats in the grandstand at the famous Chicane. Anyone who was anybody was there. I savour today the memory of Graham Hill and Jimmy Clark fighting for the lead of the Sunday Mirror Trophy in the spring sunshine of 1965, the last year in which Goodwood held a proper race for Formula 1 cars.

The BRM and Lotus were rarely more than 20 feet apart for the first few laps, with Dan Gurney’s Brabham tucked in behind them. Then Clark passed Hill on the Lavant straight and pulled away, setting a new lap record. The BRM began to falter and Hill dropped back behind Gurney and a young Scot called Jackie Stewart. But the race was far from over. Both Gurney and Stewart retired, leaving Hill in second place, while Clark took victory for the second year running. Fabulous stuff.

Later in the day a spectacular hailstorm came over the Sussex Downs and flooded the circuit just in time for the saloon car race. But this didn’t bother Jimmy Clark, out again in his Lotus Cortina, and winning a waterlogged race from Jack Sears in another Cortina. Those were the days, my friends.

Easter is here again and, away from all the lies and videotapes of Formula 1, there will be plenty of good, honest club racing around the circuits of Britain. And despite the anxieties of this recession, fans and families will make their annual pilgrimage to one of these traditional events. The Formula 3 cars will be at Oulton Park, the Superbikes at Brands Hatch and just up the road from us, at Thruxton, there’s a decent programme of national championship racing run by the BARC, which would in the old days have been orchestrating the events at Goodwood. There I go again.

Further afield, the A1GP series will be at the new Portimao circuit in southern Portugal, where Tonio Liuzzi will race for Team Italy. Liuzzi’s talent is largely wasted at Force India where he is test driver at a time when testing is banned during the season. But don’t be too surprised if he takes over from Giancarlo Fisichella before we get to Abu Dhabi in November. By all accounts, the new Grand Prix track in the Algarve is pretty impressive and there will be a good crowd there this weekend to cheer on Felipe Albuquerque at his home race.

So Happy Easter everyone, wherever you are, whatever your plans for this welcome break from the usual schedule. I doubt, however, that there will be much rest at Brackley, where the opposition is growing gradually larger in the mirrors of Jenson Button’s Brawn-Mercedes. Speaking of Mercedes, it must surely be pinning its hopes on an older, wiser young man from Britain this year.

Newsprint is tomorrow’s cat litter. Broadcasts come and go. But damage has been done. Eggs (well, it is Easter) have been broken and egos dented. Easter Monday at Goodwood suddenly seems like a very different world. Yet the sport survives and there’s much to look forward to in the coming months.

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After Rob has written something on the Festival of Speed, it seems a little bit of a cop-out to write another blog on it.

However, on a quest to get some words out of the Formula 1 drivers I set off for the top paddock and having inhaled two burgers and a hot dog already that morning I really had to go on foot. It turns out that it is, especially when you are part jogging as you can hear “and Lewis is on the hill” over the loud speaker, a long bloody way.

Once there, I managed to get a quick snippet from Lewis and had a good chat with Marc Gené, who is a thoroughly decent bloke by the way.

Anyway, back to the point, just as I was contemplating turning round and trekking back down to the Motor Sport stand, I spotted the Ferrari F1 support van just about to leave, (with more than a handful of people needed to start an F1 car there was a van per car).

Trying my best to remember my Italian I asked if there was room for one more and after some frantic waving of arms and ‘Si! Certo’, I climbed aboard.

What followed was perhaps the most hilarious moment of the weekend for me. With the side door of the van open to the ‘adoring fans’, the driver nailed it down the hill beeping the horn. While struggling to stop the Formula 1 equipment from falling out I watched as the two mechanics on the door waved to the crowd, blew kisses and shouted in their heavily accented, Italian-English, “I love you, I love you”. While all this was going on the others gave certain attractive girls in the crowd marks out of ten.

You’ll be pleased to hear that no one scored less than 8. At one moment, one of the mechanics had to be stopped from jumping out of the van while it was travelling at 30mph, and pursuing a 9 and a half pointer.

Nearing the F1 paddock, I couldn’t resist and gave a half-hearted wave myself. Sorry about that.

Jumping out of the van at the end of my, actually quite bizarre, journey the wrong way down the hillclimb, a six-year-old girl asked me for my autograph. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I was in fact a meagre journalist who nobody has heard of and gave her little pink notebook the best ‘Ed Foster’ I could muster.

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Things ain’t quite what they used to be.

Historically the question has always been: ‘How fast from 0 to 60, Mister? And what will it do flat out?’
Increasingly, the question is: ‘How far will it go on a gallon of fuel, mate?’

Here at the Goodwood Festival of Speed there is love in the air, pure love of speed, and a need for noise. This is where we gather together each summer to indulge our passion for racing cars and to share our passion with folk from every corner of the planet.

Lest we be accused of not caring for the planet on which we live, there have been some interesting developments at the Festival. Away from the noise and the speed I draw your attention to a new attraction known as FOS-TECH, introduced last year to bring new technologies and ‘green’ solutions into the heart of this great event.

Once you’ve had your fix of dragsters, Grand Prix cars, MotoGP motorcycles and Le Mans winners you should perhaps take a look inside the FOS-TECH building in the park. It is here that you will see the cars of the future, learn about new fuels and be astounded by what will be the personal transport of generations to come. There’s also a simulator where you can test your skills, not at speed, but as slowly and economically as possible. The idea is to see just how little fuel you can use to travel from A to B. Makes a fascinating change from the sheer, unadulterated passion for raw power that pervades the event outside.

The sun came out on Friday, the F1 cars shrieked up the hill and the rally cars kicked up the dust in the Goodwood forest. As ever, the legends of the sport walked amongst their fans, barely taking a step without signing their names.

There’s John Surtees! There’s Damon Hill! Look, that’s James Hunt’s son Freddie in the Hesketh! Isn’t that Tom Sneva? And that must be Bobby Unser!

And so it goes on until Sunday when Lewis Hamilton arrives. This is as close to Beatlemania as motor racing gets.

The Festival of Speed has lost none of its glamour and glitter. Where else can you see such a spectacular collection of racing machinery? You can’t. At a press conference on the opening day Lord March introduced World Trials Champion Dougie Lampkin who, of course, rode his bike into the press centre. A short flight of stairs is nothing – later he appeared on top of buildings and made it all look so easy.

So, plenty of noise, plenty of drama and a grand day out as only the British can do. People even stood downwind of the revving dragsters, the methanol bringing tears to their eyes. No matter, they’re here for the crack, and they’ll be back. Why? Because this is motor racing up close and personal. Like it used to be.

Being British at such a very British event there must surely be something to moan about? I’m struggling to think what that might be.

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Against his will, Paul Tracy is sitting on the sidelines this year, a victim of the fall-out from the reunification of Champ Car and IRL. When reunification finally came late last winter, Champ Car co-owner Jerry Forsythe’s antipathy towards Tony George was such that he decided he would not run his team in the IRL series. As a result, Tracy’s five-year contract to drive for Forsythe meant nothing and the 38-year old Canadian found himself without a ride and with no options in the IRL.

Through the spring Paul has been looking for a proper IndyCar seat, but none are available. Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IRL chief Tony George talked to Tracy about running four IRL road races in a third Vision Racing entry. George owns the Vision team but in the end he offered Tracy only a one-race deal for Edmonton with no testing. It’s unlikely Paul will take George up on his offer. Meanwhile, Tracy has had plenty of conversations with NASCAR team owners and will make his debut in NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck series at his home track in Las Vegas on September 20th driving a Toyota truck for 2007 championship-winning team owner Tom Germain.

“I really want to stay in Indy car racing,” Tracy remarked. “But there isn’t anything out there. Nobody has any money to spend and nobody has a serious program to offer. It’s very disappointing. I’m talking to people in NASCAR and sports car racing. There’s lots of interest out there but in IndyCar everyone is desperate for sponsorship. Nobody’s willing to pay any serious money. They just ask how much sponsorship I have and, like I say, nobody’s offered any kind of serious program.”

If there’s a good part to all this it’s that for the first time in his career Tracy has the time to fly to England to enjoy this weekend at Goodwood as one of Lord March’s guests. It’s his first trip to Goodwood and Tracy will drive a couple of Penske Indy cars and a replica of Graham Hill’s 1966 Indy 500-winning Lola T90. “I’m really looking forward to it,” Paul said. “I’ve heard so much about it over the years and everyone involved in organising the trip has been so nice. So far, it’s been very refreshing.”

Tracy is a natural showman, in and out of the car. He only knows how to drive flat-out and with his competitive juices still flowing at full force amid a dull year he will be delighted to be back at the wheel of a racing car. I expect Paul will be one of the stars of the show.

If you’re at Goodwood, be sure to get his autograph. And ask him almost anything you like. Unlike so many of his contemporaries, Paul speaks his mind freely, without an ounce of political correctness and with a grin and jab or two of humour, too. He should be in his element at Goodwood.

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Isn’t life strange?

This week, in the sporting headlines, we have Schumacher the cyclist and Rooney the runner. How long before Hamilton the hurdler?

Stefan Schumacher pulverised the opposition in yesterday’s Tour de France time trial at Cholet, a full nine seconds quicker than the pre-race favourite. Sounds familiar for a Schumacher.

Martyn Rooney, having won his 400 metres in style, has his sights set on gold in Beijing. If only Wayne could run like that, what a footballer he would be.

I mention this as a distraction from rain and recession. Not sure which is worse, though the rain will probably cease before the recession. One man who hopes so is the Earl of March and Kinrara whose considerable powers of persuasion stop short at improving the weather. The 2008 Goodwood Festival of Speed starts tomorrow with a viewing of the Bonhams auction which this year is notable for an extremely valuable D-type Jaguar.

We will be there in force. I am using the royal ‘we’ here as the two chaps who own our magazine will be in attendance as well as the Editor-in-Chief, the Editor, the Publisher and many other lesser mortals from the ‘original motor racing magazine’.

We all very much hope to meet as many of you readers as possible at our tent in Goodwood Park. There will be champagne, a chance to talk to Nigel Roebuck and a complete range of our new DVDs containing the Motor Sport archives. End of plug.

I can tell you that today the Festival arena is looking a little sorry for itself. It’s cats and dogs, and soon to be toads, down here in sunny Sussex. By Friday, though, the place will be humming and this year’s display outside the front of Goodwood House will blow your mind. The supercars will be first out, at 8-45, while the rally cars will venture out into the forest just fifteen minutes later. Then it’s relentless action right through until 6pm when the historic Grand Prix cars will be on the hillclimb course. Pack your wellies and your umbrellas just in case – remember last year? But we all had fun anyway.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now, a word of advice. You are probably familiar with Dougie Lampkin, the multiple world champion trials rider – if not, you soon will be. Throughout this coming weekend Dougie will be performing some completely insane stunts inside, and outside, Goodwood House. There is nothing this man cannot do with a motorcycle so prepare to be amazed and keep your eyes peeled. And bring your ear plugs – the dragster ‘cacklefest’ on the cricket pitch will demonstrate just how exciting these machines can be without actually going anywhere.

You won’t see any Rooneys or Schumachers, but you will see Lewis Hamilton. On Sunday he will drive his McLaren-Mercedes, a lap of honour in celebration of that wonderful victory last weekend. He must feel like he can walk on water. Perhaps he always has. And I’m personally looking forward to seeing all those Lolas in their 50th anniversary year. Then there’s Petter Solberg, one of the sport’s great showmen, in the WRC Subaru, and the new Airbus A380 will fly just for us, and… it goes on and on…

See you there.

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I try to avoid being on holiday during a Grand Prix weekend. That’s not always easy once the European season gets underway, as you will appreciate.

Looking at the diary in February I quickly came to realise that the summer was going to be busy, Motor Sport having put my name next to a most encouraging number of events, some of them Grands Prix. An early holiday, or no holiday, were the options.

The latter option did little to improve the atmosphere at home so here we are, in Corfu, and the Spanish GP in Barcelona is not exactly headline news in the local newspapers. The Greeks are a great deal more concerned with football than they are with motor racing. And it is Easter weekend – well, Holy Week to be precise – and access to British newspapers and broadcasting is, to say the least, limited.

Easter Sunday found us with friends in the mountain village of Skripero, slowly roasting a large lamb over an open fire, and easing into the day with an ouzo. To receive the race coverage on ITV requires the installation of a satellite dish the like of which you would expect to find atop GCHQ or some similar secretive government establishment. This is clearly not an option in an area of such outstanding natural beauty. And nor should it be. We therefore break away from the Easter celebrations to watch the Grand Prix unfold on Antenna, a Greek channel with, naturally, a Greek commentary.

As the Ferraris lead the field round lap after lap the commentator doesn’t sound very excited but there is much discussion amongst our international party about what might, or might not, happen over the duration of this first European encounter.

The Italians are pleased, but not surprised, to see the red cars out in front. The Americans want to know what Michael Schumacher is doing these days and why did he stop at the top of his game. (The Italians glance across at Kimi who, through the interference, appears to be cruising to victory). The Brits want to know if Lewis really has what it takes and whether he is truly as cool and charming as he appears? The Greeks, understandably, are more concerned with the lamb slowly turning on the spit.

I mention these things this week because distance delivers a little perspective upon the matter. If you have not seen practice or qualifying, and you do not understand the grid, the race somehow loses some of its intensity. If you have just recently joined the throng around a TV set in a café to watch a most enthralling football match, joining in the general hullabaloo, then the Grand Prix seems somehow not to bring you to the edge of your seat.

In the days following the race at Barcelona I have come to appreciate that there was some excitement, some intrigue, and possibly some measure of the margin that the red cars appear to have over the rest of the field. And it’s interesting how the team from Maranello has a following wherever you travel, in the same way that Manchester United clearly had plenty of support in the cafes of Corfu when they strode onto the pitch at Stamford Bridge last weekend.

The village of Arillas, from where I am writing, seems a world away from fast cars, let alone racing cars. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. I am tempted to start to believe that I could wean myself off the drug that got into my bloodstream all those years ago at Goodwood. But I know that such a process is not going to happen. As the grid forms up for the next one I know I will not wish I was here, whatever I may have written on post cards this week.

Incidentally, the internet connection through which you will have received this brief report is not so easy to find. So thanks Dimitris at Brouklis where I have perched to satisfy the terms of my contract. I guess that Jenks would have simply walked down to the post box by the sea and dropped his envelope in with fingers crossed. Those were the days.

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The beginning of the Grand Prix season in Europe always seems to represent some kind of turning point in the year. It’s Spring time, sunny days are warm enough for sitting in the garden, and even the cats wake up for at least part of the day. Yes, I know there’s lots of other motor racing going on, but somehow the arrival of the transporters in Barcelona seems to mark the end of PREviews, and the beginning of the long stretch before the REviews. Such is the year for those with deadlines.

So, what am I doing to keep myself out of mischief? Writing previews, of course, the last two before the truckies roll across the Pyrenees. There’s Audi versus Peugeot at Le Mans to examine and there’s the Goodwood Festival of Speed to consider, the Earl of March having just held his ‘press day’ at his home in West Sussex.

It’s such a nice day, the Goodwood press day, especially when you’re a guest and not an organiser. I speak from experience. Apart from keeping a hand on the forthcoming TV coverage, and making a short video for the Festival website, I was able to enjoy the special atmosphere of Goodwood Park on a beautiful English Spring day.

The hard work is yet to come. For now there’s time to enjoy a blue sky, the odd fluffy white cloud, and the sound of racing cars warming up in the early morning air. And not just any old racing cars. There’s something very special about a 1906 Mercedes being warmed next to a 1997 Penske-Ilmor, a 1953 Ferrari 375 MM Berlinetta being given its final polish, while a few feet away the oil is warmed within the mighty 12-cylinder engine of a 1990 Le-Mans-winning XJR Jaguar. Fried eggs and bacon are served on a huge barbecue next to the startline on the hillclimb while butlers offer steaming coffee, or Bull Shot, on silver trays. If only every event preview could be like this, but we know that won’t happen.

Anthony Hamilton was there, straight off the plane from Bahrain, and paying close attention to a McLaren F1 GTR parked a few yards from a replica of his son’s 2008 McLaren Mercedes-Benz. Does this mean Lewis will appear at the Festival in July? Nobody knows. Up in the woods Rauno Aaltonen flung a Mini Cooper S around the rally stage while World Champion trials rider Dougie Lampkin did impossible things with his new Beta bike before appearing on the balcony of Goodwood House, still on the bike. Yes, he rode it up the stairs. Only at a Goodwood press day.

Sir Stirling Moss was there, looking as sharp as ever, and giving interview after interview. The man is a star in every sense of the word. Every young driver should aspire to this.

There were James Bond cars, and Bond girls too. A collection of 007’s cars will be a highlight of the Cartier Style et Luxe exhibition – a tribute to the secret agent’s creator Ian Fleming.

None of this is real motor racing, it is not a series or championship, it is not political and it is not under the jurisdiction of a governing body. It is entertainment. My colleague Nigel Roebuck – who spoke at length to the Earl of March – and I will be previewing the event in Motor Sport in June, by which time the season will be well and truly underway.

Spring is here, the lambs are in the fields, and the trees are beginning to flower. Lots to look forward to, certainly, on and off the circuits. Our Prime Minister still looks pretty miserable so maybe it’s time for votes of confidence in the real world too.

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This week I bring news of the 2008 Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Might this be a little premature, I hear you murmur, and aren’t you a little biased in favour of said event?

OK, let me declare my interests. Very topical just now.

I have a seat on a committee called the Goodwood Motor Sports Creative Committee, a perch I cling to despite having resigned as the marketing director of the Festival and the Revival in the winter of 2005. So, that’s my interest. No cash, no questions.

I must say, first of all, that the Festival of Speed still holds my full attention and that’s not bad after 15 years immersed in the monster. It’s just such an eclectic happening, so much to see, and so many famous faces. And I think this is the secret of its longevity at, or near, the top of what is known as the English social and sporting calendar. There really is something for everyone, especially since the inclusion of the modern Grand Prix cars, the MotoGP bikes and the forest rally stage in among all the historic men and machinery.

This summer’s ‘theme’ is ‘Hawthorn to Hamilton – Britain’s love affair with World Motor Sport’. Bit of a mouthful, this one, not exactly a snappy headline, but you probably get the gist. Hawthorn to Hamilton, that’s fairly straightforward, and there will be cars and drivers from 1958 to 2008. Purists may say that Hamilton has no place alongside Mike Hawthorn – not yet, anyway – but it’s a most useful way of bracketing half a century of Grand Prix racing. Ticket sales are already way ahead of this time last year, almost certainly in the expectation of Lewis making another appearance in his McLaren. From what I hear, the signals from Woking are good.

So, Britain’s love affair with World Motor Sport? What’s that all about? In brief, it gives Charles March and his crew another chance to cast their nets around the globe and haul in another glistening collection of wild cars and legendary racers, not to mention the rally boys and the motorcycle men. For starters, there will be 30 cars from the United States, including a sensational display of dragsters. Be prepared for NOISE! It’s a bit early to confirm the big star drivers, but there will be some big names this year. Nicolas Prost, son of the great Alain, is down to drive the Team France A1GP car, which means that Charles March may at last be able to persuade Alain himself to have a go on the Goodwood hill. Now that would be something. And big efforts are being made to tempt Richard Petty back to Goodwood, this time in the Plymouth Superbird from the Petty Museum.

I’d love to tell you about the central display outside the front of Goodwood House but the news is embargoed. I can tell you it will be highly spectacular and very different from years gone by.

Had I been writing this in my previous existence, I would have ended with, ‘Book now to avoid disappointment!’ Now, all I can say is that if you like the Festival, 2008 is going to be a good one. If you don’t, then there’s always the Revival in September.

More news after the next committee meeting. By that time Lloyd McNeill and his exceptional Goodwood team will have started to haul in their nets.

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