Goodwood: British vs French Hillclimbing with Romain Dumas and Alex Summers

Two countries, two motorsport cultures and two very different ways of racing up a hill. At the Goodwood Festival of Speed, Live4Racing crossed the Channel with one question in mind: how much do British motorsport fans really know about French hillclimbing… and how much do we know about theirs?

To find out, we went straight into the paddocks and alongside Goodwood's famous hill. British hillclimb drivers, mechanics, motorsport enthusiasts and French spectators all joined the conversation. And right in the middle of it was one driver who knows more than most about racing against the clock on a mountain: Romain Dumas.

A winner at Pikes Peak, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 24 Hours of Spa, Dumas has a very personal relationship with hillclimbing. He has followed the discipline since childhood and, in our video, describes it as “the noblest category in motorsport.”

Goodwood: much more than a moving motor show

The Goodwood Festival of Speed is one of those places where virtually every corner of motorsport seems to meet.

Formula 1 cars, prototypes, rally legends, historic racing machines and some truly extraordinary creations all attack the same stretch of tarmac, often just metres away from the spectators.

But Goodwood is also a hillclimb.

For many entrants, the hill is primarily a demonstration. Burnouts, spectacular runs and interaction with the crowd are part of the experience. For others, however, the stopwatch still matters.

That combination of show, heritage and genuine competition is what makes Goodwood so unusual. These cars are not hidden behind museum barriers. They move. They accelerate. They slide. They brake. And, most importantly, you can hear them.

The French spectators we meet in the video struggle to describe the atmosphere without simply saying the same thing: you need to experience Goodwood for yourself.

UK vs France: two different hillclimb philosophies

The comparison becomes even more interesting when we look beyond Goodwood itself.

British hillclimbing has developed its own very distinctive technical culture.

British venues are generally much shorter than the long hillclimbs associated with continental Europe. While French and European hillclimbing can involve several kilometres of road, British competitors have created machines designed to deliver astonishing performance over a very short period of time.

Jon Payne describes some of the technology involved: carbon chassis, genuine aerodynamic downforce and motorcycle-based engines producing around 500 horsepower.

At the very top of the discipline, things become even more extreme.

According to 2015 British hillclimb champion Alex Summers, some cars combine around 420 kg with 600 to 700 horsepower.

The philosophy is wonderfully uncompromising. Remove anything that is not required. Tiny fuel tanks, minimal cooling systems, minimum weight and maximum performance.

Specialist constructors such as Gould and Pilbeam have become closely associated with this uniquely British breed of hillclimb single-seater — machines that can look very different from the prototypes French fans traditionally associate with their national hillclimb scene.

Alex Summers: British champion meets Can-Am brutality

To understand that world, Alex Summers is the perfect person to speak to.

The 2015 British hillclimb champion is at Goodwood with something very different from a modern lightweight hillclimb single-seater: a spectacular 1974 Shadow DN4, a Can-Am machine associated with the championship-winning campaign of Jackie Oliver.

Different eras. Different machinery. The same obsession with performance.

Summers also explains one of the fascinating contradictions at the heart of British hillclimbing.

In the paddock, the atmosphere can be exceptionally friendly. Competitors help each other, lend tools and tyres, and British hillclimbing even allows two drivers to share the same car.

But once the clock starts, that friendliness gives way to fierce competition.

Sometimes just a few seconds are enough to decide everything.

Shelsley Walsh and Prescott: where British motorsport history is still alive

British hillclimbing is not only about cutting-edge machinery.

With Allan Winn, vice-president of the Brooklands Museum Trust and driver of the mighty Napier-Railton, our conversation moves towards another essential part of British motorsport culture: heritage.

He takes us into the world of Shelsley Walsh and Prescott, two names deeply associated with British hillclimbing.

In our film, Shelsley Walsh's history even becomes a family story. One of the enthusiasts we meet tells us that his great-grandfather competed there in 1924. Four generations later, the passion continues.

This may be one of the most striking aspects of the British scene. Hillclimbing naturally brings together serious competition, grassroots club motorsport and historic machinery.

The old cars are not simply displayed. They are driven.

That philosophy also sits at the heart of Live4Racing: connecting today's motorsport with the cars, people and stories that created its history.

Romain Dumas: from Pikes Peak to Goodwood

And then there is Romain Dumas.

Only weeks after competing at Pikes Peak, the French driver arrives at Goodwood for an event that carries the same basic “hillclimb” label but presents an almost completely different challenge.

Pikes Peak is long and wide, climbing towards an extremely high-altitude finish. Goodwood is shorter, much narrower and lined with the famous straw bales that leave little room for mistakes.

The car itself illustrates the difference.

Dumas explains that the machine running at Goodwood really is the Pikes Peak car, complete with the battery capacity required for that much longer event. The result is a car weighing around 1.6 tonnes.

For Goodwood, he would naturally prefer something lighter and more agile. But reverse the situation and a pure European-style hillclimb car would face its own limitations at Pikes Peak.

Same broad discipline. Two completely different challenges.

Could Romain Dumas race in the French Hillclimb Championship?

For French hillclimb fans, this may be one of the most intriguing moments of our film.

When we ask Dumas whether we could one day see him competing in the French hillclimb championship, he certainly does not dismiss the idea.

Hillclimbing is part of his personal motorsport story. As a child, he watched his father competing at events including Col Saint-Pierre and Sabran. He still follows hillclimbing closely today, particularly the French and European scenes.

A full season in a prototype? The level of risk gives him something to think about. A future appearance in a GT, however, once his international racing commitments become less demanding, clearly appeals to him.

For Dumas, hillclimbing remains a place where some of motorsport's most dedicated enthusiasts come together. Prototype drivers attack narrow roads with tiny margins and enormous commitment.

That combination of courage, risk and passion leads him to one particularly powerful description: for Romain Dumas, hillclimbing is “the noblest category in motorsport.”

What do the British know about French motorsport?

After the technical discussion, it is time for something different.

Ask British fans what comes to mind when they think about French motorsport and some answers appear immediately: Peugeot 205 Turbo 16, Alpine, Renault and Alain Prost.

Move into French hillclimbing, however, and things become much more difficult.

So Live4Racing brings out the photographs.

Mont-Dore? Mont Ventoux? Bernard Chambérod? Marcel Tarrès? Fabien Bourgeon? Nicolas Schatz? Daniel Boccard?

What follows is part quiz, part cultural exchange.

Some names are immediately familiar. Others require a little more thought. Sometimes a driver is recognised from a helmet, a car, a livery or simply a detail remembered from years before.

Alex Summers has a particularly interesting connection with the French scene through the FIA Hill Climb Masters, where he met French competitors and discovered that the language barrier becomes much smaller when everyone starts talking about composites, fabrication and racing cars.

And when Mont Ventoux enters the conversation, the attraction is obvious. For a driver accustomed to the very short format of British hillclimbing, the idea of attacking such a long climb feels almost exotic.

Britain and France: different roads, same passion

Ultimately, our UK vs France experiment highlights plenty of differences.

Britain has its short venues, ultra-light single-seaters, club-racing culture and historic landmarks such as Shelsley Walsh and Prescott.

France has its longer climbs, prototypes, GT cars and generations of famous names including Marcel Tarrès, Bernard Chambérod, Lionel Régal and Nicolas Schatz.

But once you look beyond the regulations, the cars and the length of the road, both cultures are driven by exactly the same thing.

Passion.

People willing to spend countless hours preparing a racing car for a run that might last only a few dozen seconds.

And perhaps that is where British and French hillclimbing understand each other perfectly.

Watch our complete Goodwood hillclimb documentary

Our encounters with Romain Dumas, Alex Summers, Jon Payne, Allan Winn, Chiann, Seth and Rob are all featured in the complete Live4Racing film.

▶ Watch the full video on the Live4Racing YouTube channel and subscribe for more. We recorded much longer interviews with several of our Goodwood guests, and extended versions will be featured in future videos.

For photography, paddock atmosphere, behind-the-scenes content and coverage directly from the events we attend, follow Live4Racing on Instagram.

And discover more of our hillclimb, endurance, historic motorsport and racing coverage at live4racing.com.

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