25 year-old London-based racing driver, Sam Hancock, set Pole Position and Fastest Lap on his way to winning the Whitsun Trophy in dominant style at the Goodwood Revival Meeting last weekend. Driving a 1965 Ford GT40, his fastest lap of 1m23.72secs – average speed of 103.2mph - also won an additional award for being the fastest lap time of the entire meeting.
The eighteen-lap Whitsun Trophy race is one of the fastest on the schedule and is held for prototype sports-racing cars built between 1963 and 1966. It featured no fewer than eight Ford GT40s and as always, was one of the crowds’ favourites.
Despite having pole position, Hancock dropped behind Colin Blower and McLaren’s technical chief, Adrian Newey, at the start before charging back and overtaking both to retake the lead. Once ahead he stretched the gap to over 10 seconds by mid-race, lapping all but six of the other drivers, before backing off slightly to nurse the car to the finish.
Obviously thrilled with his win, Hancock punched the air and waved to the crowd through the open door of his yellow GT40 on the slowing-down lap.
“That really was one of my most enjoyable races ever” said Hancock after the race, “the car is awesome to drive and to race here in front of this fabulous crowd is just magic – I’m a very lucky boy and am indebted to Sir Anthony Bamford [the car’s owner], Lord March and his brilliant team for the opportunity. Goodwood just seems to get better and better every year – quite how they do that I have no idea because there never appears to be any room for improvement!”
Hancock also raced another of Sir Anthony Bamford’s cars - a 1959 Ferrari Dino 196s – in the Sussex Trophy for World Championship sports cars and production sports racing cars of that raced between 1955-1960. Although outclassed my many more powerful cars in that category, Hancock managed to steer the pretty Dino to an 8th place finish directly behind the Jaguar D-Type of ex-F1 driver, Jonny Herbert.
Sam will now get back to his ‘modern-racing’ day job, having been retained by Binnie Motorsports for the upcoming blue-ribbon sportscar event, Petit Le Mans. Held over 10 hours at Road Atlanta, Georgia, USA on October 1st, Petit Le Mans is the penultimate round of the American Le Mans Series.
