Screaming V10 F1 cars to sing in 79MM demo

Featuring up to 20 V10 screamers from between 1989 and 2005 – possibly the best-sounding era the sport has seen – the demo, held on 9^th and 10^th April, will send incredible motoring music around the South Downs with cars expected to include machines from legends including Ferrari, Williams, McLaren and more.

These incredible machines are no strangers to the Goodwood Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard. Highlights on the Goodwood Hill over the last few years have included Williams’ incredible, BMW-engined FW26 and the screaming Ferrari F2004 and, of course, the Festival’s shootout record is still held by the McLaren MP4/13.

But this will be the first time that a near-full grid of V10-engined F1 cars from the modern era will be unleashed onto the Goodwood Motor Circuit – where once the likes of Hill, Clark, Moss and co. regularly raced their contemporary Formula 1 machines.

The first of the naturally-aspirated V10s, which would become the formula’s only layout, began to appear in F1 in 1989, after the banning of turbocharged engines, which had dominated the sport in the 1980s. Honda’s screaming V10 would rev to around 13,500rpm while Renault began powering Williams for the first time, its V10 winding the needle round to 12,500rpm, both giving an insight into what was to come for the next 16 years.

After Honda exited the sport at the end of the 1991 season Renault’s V10 would dominate. Its V10s now revved to north of 14,000rpm and would power the winners of every championship but one from 1992 to 1997. So dominant would the V10 layout become, that even Ferrari – attached to 12-cylinder engines for almost its entire F1 history – made the switch in 1996.

From 2000, with costs soaring and the battle for engine supremacy beginning to get out of hand, the FIA stepped in. Reducing the engine size allowed to 3.0-litres (from 3.5) and mandating that only V10s may be used. Far from stifling a creative and beautiful era, if anything it accelerated the arms race, as manufacturers fought to produce engines with more and more power, revving higher and higher.

By the end of the era manufacturers producing V10s included BMW, Renault, Honda, Toyota, Mercedes and Ferrari, and these vicious engines were revving up to and beyond 19,000rpm, producing well over 900PS (662kW) to make these the most powerful non-turbocharged cars F1 had seen.

The V10 era would come to an end at the end of the 2005 season, when F1 regulations changed to allow only 2.4-litre V8s at ever more restrictive specifications. While these V8s no doubt sounded great in isolation, and could rev in some cases over 20,000rpm, many pined for the unmistakable howl of a V10 F1 car.

Since then the regulations have gradually restricted engine design, for understandable cost reasons. First reducing how high the V8 engines could rev, before dropping high-revving engines altogether in favour of today’s 1.5-litre V6 hybrid powertrains.

The 79^th Members’ Meeting’s incredible demo will be one of the first chances since the switch to V8s for fans of those soaring V10 engines to see and hear such a large collection of them together on track. It will also relive the glory days when championships were won by the likes of Schumacher, Hill, Alonso, Häkkinen, Mansell and Senna.

The V10-era demonstration is the second of our 79MM demos to be announced, featuring alongside an incredible display of Porsche 956 and 962 machinery celebrating 40 years since the 956’s first Le Mans win.

Tickets for the 79^th Members’ Meeting are available now to Goodwood Road Racing Club and Fellowship members. For just £43 a year, the Fellowship offers a range of benefits in addition to the ability to purchase tickets for the exclusive Members’ Meeting, including access to our extensive video archive, competitions, offers, and much more.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.