The 900bhp Subaru ‘Gobstopper II’ beats McLaren P1 GTR on the Goodwood time attack hill climb at this year’s Festival of Speed.
You’ve really got to feel for McLaren, don’t you. Finally, after a frustrating two years, the company is making competition headlines for reasons other than limited engine power, broken gearboxes and Fernando Alonso in a deck chair as former Indy 500 winner Kenny Brack posted this year’s fastest run on the Goodwood Hillclimb in a Lanzante-built McLaren P1 GTR, the Swede’s 47.07s run smashing Mike Skinner’s run in a NASCAR Toyota Tundra. Only for Subaru to go and knacker that…
Mere minutes later, the 900bhp Subaru ‘Gobstopper II’ duly smashed the Brack’s by just under a second to lay down a new benchmark of 46.297secs, McLaren’s time on top over before it had even begun.
Saying that, to knock the efforts of not only the heavily revised Subaru WRX STI and driver Olly Clark (son of four-time British Rally Champion Roger) would be ridiculous. Indeed, the record marked the second year in succession that Clark had won Goodwood’s illustrious shootout. The Subaru itself has been specifically designed for Pro Class Time Attack competition, courtesy of a lightweight, über stiff chassis and the last ever body shell produced by Prodrive, whose four World Rally Championships tell you just how much the team knows about fast Subarus. Let’s also not forget the other course record it shattered recently too, or that ‘Gobstopper II’ snapped its way over the Goodwood line at 225.6kph. And if all of that isn’t enough for a Hollywood-style nail biter, consider that the above video was also the last of this year’s contenders to take on the shootout.
McLaren could at least walk away from Goodwood with something though: Brack’s 47.07s run was the fastest ever recorded by a road-legal production car at the Goodwood Festival of Speed since road cars first took to the hill 16 years ago.
