Revival 2026: Lotterer and Halusa Win the TT as Goodwood Reinvents Sunday
The 2026 Goodwood Revival ended with a duel for the ages in the RAC TT Celebration, a first Sunday Closing Party, and a reminder that historic racing is a living sport.
The Goodwood Revival has always sold the past. In 2026, it also sold the present. The September meeting, held from 18 to 20 September, kept its period dress and its ban on modern electronic aids, no traction control, no ABS, but added a new Sunday Closing Party and delivered a final race worthy of the occasion. The RAC TT Celebration, the weekend's blue-riband hour-long pro-am for 1963 and 1964 GTs and prototypes, came down to a straight fight between a Jaguar E-Type and a Shelby Cobra.
The past is only worth revisiting if it is still alive when you get there.
The TT duel
Mike Whitaker's TVR Griffith 400 led away, with Jack Tetley's AC Cobra in pursuit. When Dario Franchitti lost time in the pits taking over the TVR, the race became a duel between Andrew Jordan's Cobra and Andre Lotterer's Jaguar E-Type Lightweight low-drag coupe, shared with Lukas Halusa. Lotterer forced his way through at Lavant with fifteen minutes remaining and, carrying a three-second penalty for a false start, had to build the gap to keep it. He did. The E-Type took the chequered flag for Lotterer's third RAC TT Celebration victory, ahead of the Holme and Jordan Cobra and the Wakeman and Johnson Lister-Jaguar Coupe in third.
The weekend around it
The supporting programme honoured the meeting's anniversaries: all three Ford GT MkIIs from the 1966 Le Mans 1-2-3 were reunited on the sixtieth anniversary, driven by the likes of Lotterer and Tom Kristensen. Barry Sheene was honoured with a tribute collected by his son Freddie, who received the Simon Diffey Trophy for the spirit of Goodwood. Joe Colasacco, winner of the Glover Trophy in a Ferrari 1512, was named Rolex Driver of the Meeting. John McGuinness took Rider of the Meeting. And when the racing ended, the grid became a party: the inaugural Sunday Closing Party, with a ceremonial cake cut by the TT winners, brass band and champagne on the pit straight.
The analysis: racing, not reenactment
The Revival's wager is that historic machinery raced in anger is more moving than the same machinery polished in a museum. The 2026 edition kept winning that wager. Lotterer, a three-time Le Mans winner, driving a 1960s Jaguar to the limit against a touring car champion in a Cobra, is not nostalgia. It is competition, with the added charge that the cars are irreplaceable. Goodwood understands that the past is only worth revisiting if it is still alive when you get there.
