2019 FOS Central Feature to celebrate Aston Martin’s motorsport success

Why Aston Martin? Well there are many reasons – Aston Martin’s racing history is extensive and hugely impressive – but two key markers in the company’s racing history are the triumph in the 1959 World Sportscar Championship and Aston Martin’s first appearance at Goodwood, in 1949.

It was 60 years ago that Aston Martin secured its first World Sportscar Championship title at the RAC TT at the Goodwood Motor Circuit. Ferrari had won at Sebring, Porsche had mastered the Targa Florio, and Aston Martin had been victorious in both the 1,000km race at the Nürburgring and the Le Mans 24 Hours. Disaster struck for Aston Martin, though, when Roy Salvadori and Stirling Moss’s race-leading car caught fire in the pits during the first pitstop. Moss was swiftly put into the third Aston Martin DBR1 of Carroll Shelby and Jack Fairman. The trio went on to beat the Porsche 718 RSK of Wolfgang von Trips and Jo Bonnier by a lap, sealing the 1959 championship.

Wind the clocks back a further ten years and the five-lap Lavant Cup race at the 1949 Goodwood Easter Meeting marked Aston Martin’s first Goodwood appearance, with W G Bingley finishing in tenth position.

Speeding past the Central Feature, designed once again by the immensely talented Gerry Judah, the brains behind every FOS Central Feature since 1997, will be a number of Aston Martin race and road cars, but we won’t tell you which ones just yet… 

"It's absolutely wonderful that Aston Martin will star for the first time on the Central Feature at this year's Festival of Speed,” said the Duke of Richmond. “2019 is a perfect time for us to celebrate Aston Martin's past, present and future success. The Central Feature looks set to be one of the most dramatic yet, and a fitting landmark to the past century of Aston Martin success."

Photography courtesy of Motorsport Images and Pete Summers.