STARS ALIGN FOR REVIVAL

Jenson Button joined the ranks of Goodwood Revival winners when he and Alex Buncombe took the 2009 Formula One champion’s ex-Juan Manuel Fangio Jaguar C-type to a commanding victory in the Freddie March Memorial Trophy, the opening race of this year’s 12-14 September edition.

- Jenson Button

It wasn’t straightforward, though. Button started on pole, fell back and regained the lead with an audacious move on Bill Shepherd (Ford Thunderbird ‘Battlebird’) on lap three at St Mary’s corner. He handed over to Buncombe with a big buffer, when heavy rain hit, but Buncombe’s supreme car control in the fading light took the pair to a popular win by more than a minute from Sam Hancock and Theo Hunt (HWM-Jaguar).

On the damp Saturday morning, Mark Gillies (ERA A-type R3A) and Patrick Blakeney-Edwards (Frazer Nash ‘Fane’ Monoposto) proved to be the class of the Goodwood Trophy field, split by 1.898 secs at the flag, with Gillies ahead. Then, in the Madgwick Cup, Will Nuthall (Elva-BMW MKVII S) went around the outside of the similar car of polesitter Max Bartell at, appropriately, Madgwick for the first time to take the lead, but at the same place two laps later Olly Birkett (Elva-BMW MKVIII) got the advantage. After a pause for a red flag, the rain was back for the restart of what was then a 10-minute sprint, claimed by Nuthall after a second red flag for an off by a distraught Birkett.