Lando Norris and Valentino Rossi set for Monster celebration at Festival of Speed

His arrival at the event will mark the second time in three years that the reigning F1 Champion has made an appearance at the Festival of Speed, after Max Verstappen’s headline grabbing attendance in 2024. 

Norris will be joined by fellow Monster Energy athlete and nine-time Grand Prix motorcycle champion Rossi, who’ll make a welcome return to Goodwood for the first time since 2015. 

With two of motorsport’s biggest stars descending on West Sussex this July, this looks set to be one of the biggest sporting moments of the summer. It’s bound to be unmissable, but we’ll have to wait a little longer to find out exactly what's in store. 

Norris claimed his first World Championship in dramatic fashion after a season long battle with his team-mate Oscar Piastri and Verstappen. He sealed the title at the final round in Abu Dhabi by just two points from the Dutchman. 

He currently sits sixth in the standings after his McLaren team made a slow start to this year’s campaign, a second-place finish in Miami marking his best result to date.  The McLaren ace will stop by at Goodwood fresh off the back of the 2026 British Grand Prix at Silverstone, a race he won last year in front of his adoring home fans. He’ll no doubt be greeted with a similarly passionate reception at the Festival of Speed. 

Rossi, meanwhile, has built a career on four wheels after retiring from motorcycle racing at the end of the 2021 MotoGP season. Across a 26-year career he won the 125cc and 250cc Championships, before going on to claim seven 500cc titles, the last of which for Yamaha in 2009. 

After an unsuccessful two-year stint with Ducati, he returned to Yamaha still at the top of his game, finishing as Championship runner-up on three consecutive occasions from 2014-2016. 

He claimed his 89^th and final premier class race win at the 2017 Dutch TT, but an eighth title ultimately eluded him. 

Not content to walk away from racing with a record-breaking career on two-wheels, he joined the GT World Challenge Europe with Team WRT in 2022, racing an Audi R8 LMS Evo for what was his first major experience in endurance racing. 

A switch to BMW machinery in 2023 led him to his first taste of the World Endurance Championship in 2024, and after a couple of seasons racing a BMW M4 in the LMGT3 class, Rossi has his sights set on a step up to the Hypercar fold for 2026. 

That was unfortunately not to be however, and he has since made his first appearance with Team WRT in the Intercontinental GT Challenge, finishing third alongside Augusto Farfus and Raffaele Marciello. 

The pairing of Lando Norris and Valentino Rossi is a world-class combination, we can’t wait to see what these two Monster athletes get up to at the 2026 Festival of Speed.

If you missed out on a ticket for Friday or Saturday, you can still attend with one of our new packages. Choose from admission plus a three-course lunch at the Goodwood Bar & Grill, or access to The Parc, an exclusive space in the heart of the action with quality street food included. There’s also still limited availability on hospitality packages, so be sure to act quick to secure your ticket.

Images courtesy of Getty Images.

Goodwood photography by James Lynch and Dominic James.