The McMurtry Speirling Broke the Goodwood Record with Sim-Racing Paddle Shifters

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I was watching the livestream and it's like my eyes couldn't quite register, the sheer speed this thing was flying up that hill.
I also remember it from last year and had a feeling it would go on to set some kind of record, once they dial it in and turn up the wick. Phenomenal machine!


Although it's not the same thing, it also reminds me a tiny bit of some amateur design sketches i did back in 2015. I hadn't imagined electric propulsion though, instead something small like a motorbike engine. (a few sketches):
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Disgusting looking car and electric 🤢 not worthy of holding the record at Goodwood 🥴 I really don't like where motorsports and general carculture is heading.
Its the future whether we like it or not. The technology used in the car is extremely impressive and so is the speed - but I have to agree that its boring, bland and just ugly - I don't think I could watch a grid of those cars racing for longer than 5 minutes without compeltely losing interest.

This, albeit much slower and super low-tech is in my opinion so much more entertaining to watch and experience.

 
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Its like a smaller all electric version of the X2010 made real. Absolutely bonkers.
 
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Well, it's not like everyone was pushing it to the limit on goodwood, in fact, most of the cars are just cruising rather than trying to set a record. Moreover, the technology might be impressive but it's not a big deal. Like, fan cars have been a thing for more than 50 years, they were banned because of debrees they get up in the air and the fact that they outperform any car without this technology. Not like this electric car is going to become some future standart. We are never going to see this in a real race or on the street. Otherwise, making an electric car go fast is nothing new. they even talked about problems with stability on high speeds because of the narrow construction of the car.
 
Well, it's not like everyone was pushing it to the limit on goodwood, in fact, most of the cars are just cruising rather than trying to set a record.
They are very much pushing it to the limit on Goodwood. There's literally a "timed shootout" session (actually six of them), which has the entered cars going as fast as possible. That's the actual point of it.

It was during one of these sessions that the ID.R finally beat Nick Heidfeld's 1999 run in the McLaren MP4/13, in 2019. And the McMurtry Speirling beat the ID.R's time twice, in two different timed shootout sessions, including the actual Sunday final.
 
What an awesome little thing that is! The sound it made on the start line is crazy, I'm assuming that was the fans starting up and sucking it into the ground? The tiny size and the mind boggling speed made it feel like it was being driven on fast forward. I think my personal favourite on the hill climb this year was the Hoonigan Subaru GL though, it looks like something out of a video game
 
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Yeah the F1 run with Heidfeld
Nope.

Heidfeld's run was merely the fastest timed shootout final time, at 41.6s, not the record. The record was set in 2019 by the Volkswagen ID.R, on the Saturday, at 39.90s - having also beaten Heidfeld's record on the Friday with a 41.18s. It was wet on the Sunday, and set a 42.3s final time.

I was there, working. I shot this out of the office window:


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The McMurtry beat both, setting a 39.14 on the first timed run on the Sunday and a 39.08 during the final.
 
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Kind of troubling news for Goodwood. The spirit of goodwood is seeing a bunch of disparate cars and drivers being pushed up a hill they weren’t designed for. Now we’re seeing purpose built machines for running this type of event as quickly as possible, it’s inevitable they’ll get more extreme, will eventually crash and kill spectators, and the timed portion of Goodwood will cease to exist.
 
Kind of troubling news for Goodwood. The spirit of goodwood is seeing a bunch of disparate cars and drivers being pushed up a hill they weren’t designed for. Now we’re seeing purpose built machines for running this type of event as quickly as possible, it’s inevitable they’ll get more extreme, will eventually crash and kill spectators, and the timed portion of Goodwood will cease to exist.
Hill climb cars in general have been purpose built or very specifically altered for years, they are getting faster but I've been to goodwood several times and it's very safe. The same as every motorsport ticket has 'motorsport is dangerous' printed on the back - you can never rule out all danger, but I highly doubt this will do anything to harm the festival...
 
Now we’re seeing purpose built machines for running this type of event as quickly as possible,
It's not.

McMurtry has been running it at various tracks this year, including Silverstone. It's also fully road legal (although you almost certainly cannot use the fans on the public road) and this car is road registered. Not only that, McMurtry is planning to produce them, at reportedly seven-figure sums apiece (which isn't surprising, given that it has a largely experimental battery and is entirely made from carbon fibre).

That's the whole point of the car. The company was founded by Sir David McMurtry in 2016, who assembled a bunch of ex-F1 engineers at a base in Gloucestershire (so we can probably guess which F1 team has provided the majority) to make "the ultimate performance car".


The one thing it's not is a purpose-built Goodwood Festival of Speed car. Given what's inside it, that would be a very expensive vanity project.
 
Kind of troubling news for Goodwood. The spirit of goodwood is seeing a bunch of disparate cars and drivers being pushed up a hill they weren’t designed for. Now we’re seeing purpose built machines for running this type of event as quickly as possible, it’s inevitable they’ll get more extreme, will eventually crash and kill spectators, and the timed portion of Goodwood will cease to exist.
Wait until you hear about a little event called Pikes Peak. Or an actual hillclimb motorsport discipline.
 
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