What is the Lavant Cup?

It’s a race that regularly features sportscars from the 1950s and is often themed to a specific marque, taking its name from the nearby Lavant Village, which also lends its name to the Motor Circuit's Lavant corner and the Lavant straight.

In 2026, the Lavant Cup will comprise the Battle of Modena, as Ferrari goes head-to-head against Maserati in what is sure to be a spectacular showcase of 1950s sportscars.

Even during the Motor Circuit’s heyday, the Lavant Cup was a race run to various specifications, for Formula 2, Formula 1 and sportscars, where it counted as a round of the British Sportscar Championship.

The first contest in 1949 was won by Dudley Folland in a Ferrari 166 SC, and in the years it ran until 1966 the race was won by some of the biggest names in motorsport in the 1950s and ‘60s.

Reg Parnell (1954) and Bruce McLaren (1962), as well as Jim Clark in his second Championship-winning year of 1965 each took a victory, while multiple-time winners of the Lavant Cup include Sir Stirling Moss (’51, ’61), Roy Salvadori (’55, ’56, ’63) and Jack Brabham (’58, ’59).

Of the seven Lavant Cup races that have taken place in the Revival era since the first in 2009, only three have been mixed-marque grids. That first race was a two-driver event won by a Ferrari 246 S Dino in a field that included several Lister-Jaguars, an Aston Martin DBR1 and a Lotus Eleven. 

The 2016 grid was similarly varied, with cars like the Cooper T25 and BMW 328 featuring, as well as numerous Frazer-Nash Le Mans Replicas. The mixed-grid was a theme of the Lavant Cup during 2020’s SpeedWeek, too. This time a Maserati Birdcage led a beautiful field that included Jaguar C- and D-types, and Aston Martin DB3S and a Cooper T49.

It’s much more common, though, for the Lavant Cup to host a themed grid. The first was the all-Jaguar D-Type grid in 2014, with a mix of long nose and short nose cars vying for victory. A year later, the grid was packed with 1950s Ferraris. For 2022, the Lavant Cup went a bit more grassroots, and a decade later than usual, with an all-MGB affair. Then things returned to the more rarefied norm for a field of Ferrari 250s in 2023. That was won by a mid-engined 250LM against a field composed mostly of front-engined rivals.

After its two-year hiatus, the Lavant Cup will return in 2026. Fitting in with the celebrations of Maserati, 100 years after its first major motorsport success, alongside the ‘La Dolce Vita’ theme that will run through this year’s Goodwood Revival, the race will feature Ferraris and Maseratis from the 1950s.

With both marques having claimed outright victories in the past, we can’t wait to see who will come out on top in the Battle of Modena, in one of the most valuable fields of this year’s Revival.

Tickets for the 2026 Goodwood Revival are now on sale. If you’re not already part of the GRRC, you can sign up to the Fellowship today and save ten per cent on your 2026 tickets and grandstand passes, as well as enjoying a whole host of other on-event perks.  

Photography by Tom Shaxson, Pete Summers and Jayson Fong.