The first race at Goodwood Revival this weekend was the Levant Cup – a race of 16 1960- 66 Ferraris celebrating Graham Hills famous 1963 victory at the Goodwood TT.

A fine selection of near-priceless (and certainly irreplacable) motors – all worth £2m plus.  Karun Chanhok was driving a Ferrari 250GTO.  He started sixth but made it up to third from the start.

Here are Karun’s words to describe what happened on the 10th lap:

“The 250 GTO is one of my absolute dream cars”, Chandhok told us on a call the following morning.

“I was pinching myself. The owner was lovely and so happy for me to go out and enjoy it. The race was fun but I wasn’t really going to be catching the front runners.

“So part-way around, I was just thinking to myself, ‘how cool is this? I’m in a GTO at Goodwood!’. Then coming out of Lavant onto the straight – I was in second and cruising – I heard a bang and the back wheels locked up. As I turned I saw flames, so I got right off the track safely, to minimise oil going down and get out of the way.”

It’s worth watching the video here.  How many drivers would have the presence of mind to demonstrate that very fine balance between looking after the car, caring about oil on the track for fellow racers AND self-preservation!

And the debate is widespread.  Should we wrap these one-offs and ultra rare cars in cotton wool, or should they be out on track doing what they were designed and built for.

I’m for racing!  These car should be in their natural habitat as often as possible.