What is the Richmond & Gordon Trophies race?

As a race of 2.5-litre Grand Prix cars that raced between 1952-60, the Richmond & Gordon Trophies race highlights an extraordinary developmental spell in F1, where mid-engine cars first began to dominate over the front-engined designs of early years.

The contest is named after the ninth Duke of Richmond, Freddie March, who established the Goodwood Motor Circuit on the site of the former RAF Westhampnett in 1948. The Dukedom of Richmond is held alongside that of Gordon, which is why both titles appear in the name of the race at Revival. In period, it was known simply as the Richmond Trophy and it ran for four consecutive years, starting in 1949 — the year after the circuit opened.

In those early post-war years, it was common for new cars to compete with machinery from the 1930s. The first Richmond Trophy was won by Reg Parnell aboard a Maserati 4CLT, and he returned the following year to claim the victory again. The 4CLT made it a clean sweep in 1951 when B Bira was at the wheel. 

Maserati’s tight grasp on the trophy finally came to an end in the Richmond Trophy’s final running in 1952, when Jose Froilan Gonzales took the chequered flag with a different Italian machine, this time a Ferrari 375. 

The annual modern era fixtures recreate those events from the Goodwood Motor Circuit’s very earliest days with a 25-minute race that brings to life the spectacle of those forerunners to modern Formula 1, a golden era of the sport.

With cars hailing from both before and after World War II, the evocative grid always promises a real variety of machines. Cooper pioneered the charge in period, and both formats compete against each other in today’s event just as they did in the 1950s.

Front-engined cars such as the Maserati 250F — the last front-engined car to win a Grand Prix, and Ferrari 246s go wheel-to-wheel with more advanced mid-engined Coopers, Lotuses and BRMs. The advantage naturally favours the later cars, but the racing is close within those two genres. Typically, just a few seconds cover the first few rows of the grid.

The Richmond & Gordon Trophies race honours perhaps the most significant era in the history of motorsport. Seeing the forefathers of modern F1 compete on the same circuit as they did in period is one the Revival’s truly unmissable moments.

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 Jayson Fong and Dominic James.