This year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed was even more special as the crowds returned to a festive atmosphere after one of the most miserable years humankind has ever witnessed. In fact, the misery is still not over in certain parts of the world due to mismanagement, lack of awareness and various other things. But anyway, it’s good to see at least some parts of the world returning to “normal”. The honor of concluding a successful weekend at the 2021 Goodwood Festival of Speed went to McLaren Automotive with a sensational victory for the 720S GT3X in the timed shootout final.
Piloted by factory driver Rob Bell, the track-only 720S stormed to the top of the leaderboard with a time of 45.01 seconds, beating Travis Pastrana in Subaru WRX STI by over a second. Interestingly, the record time of 41.60 set by McLaren-Mercedes MP4/13 F1 car in 1999, still remains unbeaten.
Designed and developed in-house by McLaren Automotive’s motorsport arm — McLaren Customer Racing, the 720S GT3X is powered by a race-prepped version of the M840T 4.0L twin-turbo V8 with 720 metric hp on tap. If that’s not sufficient, an extra 30 metric hp is available via a ‘push-to-pass’ system. Weighing just 1,210 kg (2,668 lbs), the 720S GT3X boasts a power-to-weight ratio of 0.58 hp/kg.
| 2021 Goodwood Festival of Speed top-ten timed shootout results | ||
| Car | Driver | Time |
| McLaren 720S GT3X | Rob Bell | 45.01 |
| Subaru WRX STI | Travis Pastrana | 46.20 |
| Spice-Cosworth SE88 | Jeremy Smith | 47.16 |
| Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (992) | Harry King | 47.65 |
| Nissan Skyline GT-R R32 (HKS) | Jake Hill | 48.96 |
| Praga R1 | Ales Jirasek | 51.38 |
| Ford Escort Cosworth | Anthony Reid | 51.62 |
| Sauber-Mercedes C9 | Kenny Acheson | 52.27 |
| Holden Commodore | Ric Wood | 53.13 |
| Toyota Corolla BTCC | Rory Butcher | 53.89 |
Recommended for you
Leave a Reply
Note: Comments that are unrelated to the post above get automatically filtered into the trash bin.
