- Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard is celebrating 75 years of the Formula 1 World Championship.
- 1992 Formula 1 World Champion Nigel Mansell to drive Williams FW11 and FW14B.
- Festival of Speed takes place Thursday 10 - Sunday 13 July.
- Limited Thursday tickets remain at goodwood.com.
Goodwood is thrilled to announce that 1992 Formula 1 World Champion Nigel Mansell will return to this year’s Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard, as the event joins forces with Formula 1 to celebrate 75 years of the F1 World Championship.
2025 will be Mansell’s fourth visit to the Festival of Speed, and will see the Formula 1 legend drive his 1992 Championship-winning Williams FW14B and race-winning FW11 – the car which would have taken him to the championship six years earlier, in 1986, but for a dramatic tyre failure 18 laps from the end of the final race in Adelaide – the latter supported by Honda Collection Hall.
Nigel Mansell’s career is the stuff of legend, characterised by blinding speed, fierce determination, bitter rivalries, stratospheric highs and devastating lows. It was a tale of triumph over adversity, supported all the way by his wife Rosanne – the couple recently celebrated their golden wedding anniversary! His attacking style, and steadfast refusal to accept defeat, won him an army of fans globally, but especially at home in the UK, in Italy, where the Tifosi named him ‘Il Leone’ (‘the lion’) during his two seasons at Ferrari, and in America, where he followed up his 1992 F1 World Championship by winning the IndyCar World Series at his first attempt in 1993 – he briefly held the two biggest single-seater titles in the world at the same time.
It's rare for individual overtaking manoeuvres to be remembered, but such was Nigel Mansell’s skill and bravery that he has four entries on the list of all-time greats: Silverstone 1987, when he dummied team-mate (and fierce rival) Nelson Piquet into Stowe corner after overhauling a 30-second deficit following a mid-race pit stop; Hungary 1989, when, with lightning reflexes, he out-fumbled Ayrton Senna as they came across a slow-moving backmarker; Mexico 1990, when he went around the outside of Gerhard Berger into the flat-out Peraltada corner, to snatch second on the penultimate lap; and Barcelona 1991, when he duked it out, wheel-to-wheel, mere inches apart from Senna down the length of the pit straight, creating one of the most memorable images in Formula 1 history.
Coming into Formula 1 in 1980, as a protégé of Colin Chapman (he was the last driver signed by the Lotus founder), Mansell was devastated by his sudden death at the end of 1982. Without his mentor’s support, he fell out of favour at Lotus, and it wasn’t until the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch in 1985, after a switch to Williams, that he finally became a Grand Prix winner. A further 30 Grand Prix wins followed, between 1985 and 1994, and Mansell retired as the most successful British Formula 1 driver of all time in terms of races won, and remains second on that list to this day, behind only Sir Lewis Hamilton. His 14 pole positions during the dominant 1992 season has only been beaten once, by Sebastian Vettel in 2011, but where Seb’s total of 15 came from 19 races, Nigel needed only 16 races to reach 14. Such was the superiority of Mansell and the FW14B, had the season gone on for three more races, it is fair to assume his total would have been 17…
Since his debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2006, Nigel Mansell has delighted fans by driving several significant cars from his career, including the 1982 Lotus 91 – Colin Chapman's last Grand Prix-winning design – and, in 2022, being reunited with his 1992 Championship-winning FW14B for the first time in 30 years. In addition to his appearances, Mansell’s cars have been showcased at Goodwood, and in 2023 Sebastian Vettel took to the wheel of the FW14B, with the car running on sustainable fuel to highlight his ‘Race Without Trace’ initiative.
Mansell will attend the Festival of Speed as part of the event’s single biggest celebration, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Formula 1 World Championship. Mansell will join the Champions class alongside fellow champions, and former team-mates, Alain Prost and Mario Andretti, with other legendary F1 names to be announced in the coming weeks.
Speaking ahead of the event, 1992 Formula 1 World Champion Nigel Mansell said: “I’m looking forward to returning to the Festival of Speed this summer and celebrating 75 years of the Formula 1 World Championship. It’s been amazing to drive the Goodwood hillclimb in a number of my cars over the years, and I can’t wait to do it all again!”
The Duke of Richmond CBE DL said: “I couldn’t be happier that Nigel will be coming back to the Festival of Speed this year, as we host our biggest ever celebration to mark 75 years of the Formula 1 World Championship. Nigel was more than just a legend of the sport, he was a hero, and celebrating Formula 1 without him would be unthinkable! As well as being one of the fastest, bravest and most determined drivers of all time, he inspired a level of devotion amongst British fans the like of which we have never seen before or since. We got a small glimpse of ‘Mansell Mania’ when he came to Goodwood three years ago, and I look forward to its return in July.”
Nigel Mansell joins the previously-announced Champions Alain Prost and Mario Andretti, the celebration for four-time WorldSBK Champion Carl Fogarty, the biggest celebration of Formula 1, and Gordon Murray Automotive’s impressive Central Feature sculpture.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday tickets are now sold out, with limited Thursday tickets remaining at goodwood.com.
-ENDS-
