Olly Stars at Goodwood Revival

A very wet weekend at Goodwood didn’t dampen proceedings for Olly, who enjoyed his most successful run to date at the Goodwood Revival.

Sharing with Andrew Smith in the Lotus 15, Olly backed up his 2023 victory in the Sussex Trophy with a dominant display to win by some 45 seconds in the 1-hour event, which this year was held into the dusk on Friday evening. Lack of grip in qualifying resulted in a P9 start, but fresh tyres for the race start allowed Andrew to climb into the lead before the pitstops. When Olly climbed aboard, he set a string of fastest laps to extend a sizeable gap until the flag, Spiers & Greensal Lister and Wills & Davidson Lotus made up the podium.

Olly triumphed once again in the Lola T70 Spyder with a fine drive from P3 on the grid to take a well-earned victory after a ferocious early scrap with Nick Padmore, Alex Brundle and then James Davidson in Brad Hoyt’s McLaren. The pair swapped positions for a number of laps before Olly managed to build a gap he could maintain until the chequered flag.

Olly was partnered up with 2024 BTCC Champion Jake Hill in GPG 4C for the RAC TT. Having had a few laps in the car at Goodwood back in June, Olly was delighted to invite Jake to share the car for the TT. A wet session curtailed by red flags meant Jake didn’t drive the car until Saturday’s second qualifying session. Not deterred, Jake set an impressive time good for P3 on the grid. Unfortunately, in post-qualifying checks, the scrutineers discovered a bolt on the anti-roll bar they were not happy with. The car’s mechanics willingly removed this bolt, but the decision was made to penalise the car, and all qualifying times were deleted. This meant Olly & Jake would have to start from the back of the grid for the 1-hour blue-riband event on Sunday. With damp track conditions, Olly made an impressive start, climbing through the order all the way to 2nd position by the time he pitted with 21 21-minute run. Jake took over and soon set a rapid pace, overtaking Alex Brundle for the lead after a brief safety car interruption. His BTCC rival, Tom Ingram, was slowly catching, and for the last 10 minutes, the pair enjoyed an epic duel. Ingram used the TVR’s blistering straight-line performance to edge ahead with just under 2 minutes remaining. GPG came home a fine 2nd, a very respectable result after starting last! Olly was awarded Rolex “Driver of the Meeting” for his efforts when reviewed alongside the Sussex and Whitsun wins on the same weekend.

Being awarded the 'Driver of the Meeting' award and the Sussex Trophy with Andrew Smith

Additional photos from the weekend have been uploaded to the image gallery section!