CHRIS GOODWIN

He shaped how modern McLarens handle and was instrumental in Aston Martin's Valkyrie too. Chris Goodwin explains why, for him, testing has always trumped racing

- by COLIN GOODWIN

YOU MIGHT ASK THE QUESTION 'ARE these two Goodwins related?' The answer is: not as far as Chris and I know, but a simple DNA test would settle it. A less scientific method, though I think also accurate, would be to compare lap times between Chris and Colin, with the latter's very lacklustre numbers indicating that there is no genetic link between us.

We could also go up a generation, for whereas my father never drove a car in his life, Chris Goodwin's dad Tony was a passionate and successful racing driver. 'My dad joined the RAF after he finished at medical school and in the early 1960s he was posted to RAF Changi in Singapore as chief medical officer,' explains Goodwin, 'and he took with him his Lola Mk2, which was a Formula Junior car but with a different engine in it. He competed in events like the Singapore and Malaysian Grands Prix and also at Macau. We've got some great photographs of him on the front of the grid at Macau in a Lotus 20 [another Formula Junior car, this one mid-engined] in a race in which he came third.

'Soon after his return from the Far East he decided to give the European Formula 3 circus a go, joining that bohemian group of racers who travelled around the continent with vans and trailers, living frugally and picking up start money and living hand to mouth. That was in 1967, the year that I was born. I was born in Guildford and we lived in a flat in Dorking. Dad's foray into F3 didn’t work out, so he came back to being a local GP. He never, however, stopped racing.

'Growing up I was captivated by his stories of racing in Europe, at places like AVUS and the Nürburgring. After his single-seater racing he took up endurance racing and owned a couple of Chevrons and Lolas shared with other drivers who were a bit better off than he was. He had some good results, winning the 2-litre class at the Spa 1000km for example.