2025 Whitsun Trophy preview | Goodwood Revival

Cars such as the thundering Lola T70 and nimble Ford GT40 all date from 1960-'66, the year the Goodwood Motor Circuit closed. The Whitsun name has been associated with Goodwood since the inaugural Whit Saturday Meeting, held over the Whitsun weekend in 1950. The first Whitsun Trophy took place in 1954 as a Formula Libre event in which two BRM V16s claimed first and second places.

The Revival’s interpretation of the Whitsun Trophy most closely resembles the race held in 1965, in which John Coundley’s McLaren M1A beat Roy Salvadori’s Ford GT40 to victory at the head of a field that included open-cockpit prototypes from Brabham and Lotus.

This was an era of experimentation in which sport-racing prototypes first moved to a mid-engined format. The result is a field where no two cars look alike, their only similarity typically being big-block Ford or Chevrolet V8s with no shortage of cubic inches.

These powerful machines led Freddie March, in period, to believe that the racing at the West Sussex circuit was becoming too fast. Since the first Revival Whitsun Trophy in 2001, we have picked up where the circuit left off: it has been on the race card every year since, much to the delight of Revival-goers.

Previous winners of the Whitsun Trophy

Tickets for the Goodwood Revival are now available! Saturday tickets are selling fast, so secure yours now to avoid missing out, and don’t forget to take advantage of early bird pricing to save up to 10 per cent when you book before 1^st May 2025.

Photography by Toby Whales.