Channelling the Summer of ‘95 at the Festival of Speed

Starting on two wheels, the legendary Carl Fogarty won the second of his eventual four World Superbike Championship titles aboard his Ducati 916 in 1995. Coming off the back of an impressive 1994 season with ten victories, Fogarty dominated the ‘95 season with 13 wins, including all four races held in the UK, two at Donington Park and the others at Brands Hatch. 

Fogarty is here at the Festival this weekend, marking his career and that extraordinary 1995 season with a moment on the Goodwood House Balcony. 

Meanwhile on four wheels, rally legend Colin McRae took his one and only World Rally Championship title in 1995. McRae quite literally made the move across from two wheels to four, having started out in motorsport with motorcross, winning his first title at the age of 13, before moving on to rallying aged 16.

A number of cars from his fantastic career are at the Festival of Speed, but most important for die-hard rally fans is McRae’s 1995-winning machine, the iconic Subaru Impreza 555 in which he secured two rally wins and three podium finishes. Alongside his own cars, like the 2001 Ford Focus WRC and 1997 Impreza WRC, are the cars he competed against, such as a 1994 Toyota Celica GT-Four ST185 and a 1999 Mitsubishi Evo VI.

From rally to Le Mans, specifically the McLaren F1 GTR. We’ve celebrated the wonderful career of the McLaren F1’s designer, Gordon Murray, but we must take a moment to reminisce about McLaren’s Le Mans 24 Hours challenge in 1995.

Though it was never designed to be a racing car, customers of the ‘regular’ McLaren F1 (if there is such a thing) started to pester McLaren, wondering what a stripped out, race ready version would look and feel like. One car was modified and then tested by potential customers ahead of the 1995 season, and sure enough creating the GTR became a no-brainer.

Fast forward to Le Mans and McLaren F1s occupied seven spots on the starting grid. Despite heavy rain in the night, McLaren came home in first, third, fourth and fifth. The winning car, number 59 from Kokusai Kaihatsu Racing with Yannick Dalmas, Masanori Sekiya and JJ Lehto at the wheel, is here this weekend, violently tickling ear drums just as it did 30 years ago. What’s more, JJ Lehto is at the helm.

What else happened in 1995? Well just as we saw a Brit at the top of the podium at the British Grand Prix recently, with Lando Norris taking his first Silverstone victory, Johnny Herbert won his first race and his home Grand Prix in one hit at Silverstone in 1995. 

With six seasons under his belt in F1 for four teams, the F1 dream wasn’t coming to life in the way many thought it might for Herbert given his talent in earlier formulas. Racing for Benetton in 1995 and with 1994 world champion Michael Schumacher as a team-mate, it looked as though Herbert would be in a good car with the B195 but might be up against it with Schumacher. That ended up being the case, as a title hunt was never on the cars, but a second place and two fourth places in the first five races of the season showed Herbert was still in a decent position. 

Arriving at Silverstone, Herbert put the car in fifth position in qualifying, 1.7 seconds behind Williams’ Damon Hill. Come Sunday, though, Herbert was on it, keeping himself out of trouble while people like Hill and Schumacher found themselves getting into trouble, Hill and Schumacher crashing into each other on lap 46. David Coulthard came close to taking Herbert’s lead, but ultimately the home hero won with a convincing 16 second advantage. 

Two more wins followed for Herbert, one of which was later in 1995 at Monza, while team-mate Schumacher won his second of seven eventual World Championships. Herbert may not have had the success some expected, but a home F1 victory is something many drivers dream of and never achieve.

Also on home soil in 1995, John Cleland enjoyed a dominant season in the British Touring Car Championship at the wheel of a Vauxhall Cavalier 16v. Cleland had finished second in the 1991 BTCC season, then third, fourth and fourth in ‘92, ‘93 and ‘94 respectively. He was proving to the nation he was one of the quickest drivers around, but with such fine margins there was never any guarantee Cleland would be able to secure a BTCC title.

Thankfully, however, 1995 proved to be his year, one where no one - even the likes of Alain Menu, Rickard Rydell and Tim Harvey - could truly take the fight to Cleland. Out of 25 races that season, Cleland only finished off the podium seven times, securing six race wins, five second place finishes and seven third places.

While John Cleland isn’t here this weekend, his lovely Cavalier 16v is.

Finally, a success away from UK motorsport and a reversal of the situation we find ourselves in with John Cleland and his Cavalier, we have a 1995 title-winning driver here at the Festival but not the car they drove to victory. We’re talking, of course, about Jacques Villeneuve.

The 1995 CART championship winner and Indy 500 winner with a Reynard 95I-Ford XB is here driving a 1973 Ferrari 312 B3 and a Ferrari 312T, the latter a car originally raced by his father Gilles Villeneuve. No, he’s not a Brit, but winning the 1995 Indy 500 and not mentioning it as we look back 30 years would be a tad mean.

Arguably the Macarena is still the real win of 1995, but given this is the Festival of Speed, we’ll take these motorsport heroes and victories as the true legends. 

The 2025 Goodwood Festival of Speed is underway! You can watch every moment of the action by watching our livestream.  

Goodwood photography by Jordan Butters, Pete Summers, Rob Cooper, Toby Whales and Eimear Hyland.

1995 Silverstone Grand Prix images courtesy of Getty Images.