Revival 2015 Race Preview: Lavant Cup

The Goodwood Revival and Ferrari go together like 250 and GTO – and 2015 will be no exception. Never before, however, has the Motor Circuit been quite so full of prancing horses as it will be over the weekend of 11-13 September.

More than 50 of Maranello’s most magnificent machines will be posing, prancing and powering their way through Revival this year. They will be racing in the Sussex Trophy, Fordwater Trophy, Richmond Trophy and in the RAC TT Celebration race. The Earls Court Motor Show central concourse will be full of nothing but Ferraris. But most of all, they will be in the Lavant Cup.

For its fifth running, the Lavant Cup grid will be an entirely Ferrari affair – a race devoted to that most beautiful, evocative and successful breed of Ferrari: drum-braked sports prototypes made before 1960. Over twenty-five of them. In one race!

Cars like the 166 MM, 250 GT MM, 250 Tour de France, 500 Testa Rossa and 750 Monza. Cars that sealed Ferrari’s reputation in sports car racing with victories at Le Mans, Monza and Sebring, and in the Mille Miglia, the Targa Florio and Carrera Panamericana. Cars that delivered five World Sportscar Championship titles for Ferrari, with drivers such as Alberto Ascari, Froilan Gonzalez and Olivier Gendebien.

There’s a lot that links Ferraris of this period. They are all beautiful cars for one thing, despite styles that vary greatly, while little surpasses them for aural stimulation. And, as the race billing suggests, all are slowed by drum brakes. The first Ferrari to get discs as standard was the 250 SWB in 1960 – seven years after Jaguar first used them for the C-type.

Never fear, though – there is absolutely nothing pedestrian about a drum-braked Ferrari, especially around Goodwood’s fast corners. A field of 30 of these cars at full tilt mere feet apart will provide a sight and sound to remember.

The oldest of the 30 is the 1950 166 MM Barchetta while the youngest are the 1958 Tour de France models. Others include Sir Anthony Bamford’s 1957 Testa Rossa, Nick Mason’s 250 MM and the 1955 750 Monza driven by GRR’s own Andrew Frankel. He’ll be up against drivers who include GRRC house captain Emanuele Pirro, driving the 1957 500 TRC.

Could the spectacle of all this possibly match even that of the Lavant Cup last year, when an entire grid of Jaguar D-types and XKSSs took to the circuit? They provided not just an equally valuable field but also one where the racing was extremely fast and furious (and if you want to refresh your memory of that, click here).

Match it? We reckon this must-see race could even beat it! The Lavant Cup this year is Race No6 on Saturday 12 September.