Goodwood Driver’s Gallery

Story and photos by Jonathan Sharp

As is our custom with the Goodwood Festival of Speed, (this year held on July 6-7) we hung out in the paddock and photographed drivers as well as cars. There are few events where the young rising stars get to mingle with the older drivers and the atmosphere is always friendly.

It is probably my age but thank heavens the younger drivers have their names on the waist bands of the race suits as I would be struggling, like many other photographers of my age, to know who they are.

I am OK, obviously, with Sir Jackie Stewart, Johnny Rutherford, Damon Hill, Jochen Mass, Emerson Fittipaldi, Riccardo Patrese, Derek Bell, Brian Redman, Gijs van Lennep and Richard Attwood, and I recognized Daniel Ricciardo from his smile, but Esteban Ocon, Antonio Giovinazzi, Carlos Sainz Jr. and Patrick Friesacher? No chance. Hence, Sunday morning and I am sheltering from the rain under the trees near the start line, when the 2017 Mercedes-Benz AMG F1 car is pushed towards the grid. Best I go and take a shot of the driver, who I assumed would be one of the team’s test drivers. Shot taken, I step back under the trees. The driver gets out of the car and oh man, it is not a test driver, it’s Valtteri Bottas, who as I write this, just took the pole at Silverstone. Maybe I should pay more attention when I watch Grand Prix racing on the television.

Below, we present our gallery of greats, and near greats, in no particular order. Drivers include those mentioned above, and Dario Franchitti (lead photo), Anthony Davidson, Rubens Barrichello, Roman Dumas, Rene Arnoux, Nick Heidfeld, Marc Gene, Arturo Merzario, Takuma Sato, Mike Doohan, father and son, Petter and Oliver Solberg, and engineer Adrian Newey.