Not so Goodwood…World’s fastest man crashes at Goodwood

Wing Commander Andy Green crashes his £100,000 Jaguar into the straw bales at the Festival of Speed

He might be the fastest man in the world, but Wing Commander Andy Green came unstuck at the Goodwood Festival of Speed when he crashed his Jaguar XJR Rapid Response Vehicle into the straw bales.

Green was driving up the 1.16-mile hillclimb course as part of the Michelin Supercar Run, but misjudged his approach speed to the infamous Molecomb left-hander, running over the grass on the inside of the track before crashing head-on into the barrier.

Nobody was injured in the accident, but the car suffered heavy damage to the front, and the impact was also severe enough to break a television camera situated at the corner.

The Rapid Response Vehicle is based on the £92,000 XJR luxury saloon, to which Jaguar has carried out numerous safety modifications intended to support Bloodhound SSC in the event of any incidents.

Jaguar is the technical partner of the Bloodhound Project, for which Green hopes to improve on his current world land speed record of 763mph (set in Thrust SSC in 1997) to be the first person to break the 1,000mph barrier on land.

The Bloodhound record attempt is set to take place on the Hakskeen Pan in Northern Cape, South Africa in 2016.

To be fair to Green, he is by no means the first person to crash at Molecomb. Last year Olympic cycling legend Sir Chris Hoy crashed a Nissan GT-R in the same spot, while yesterday a very rare Mazda 767B Group C Le Mans car came off the track in the same place.