Marino Franchitti Looks Forward To Goodwood FoS

Marino Franchitti heads to the Goodwood Festival of Speed to share a Porsche with Derek Bell

This weekend will see Marino fulfil a lifelong dream - to drive a Porsche 956. Marino will be at the Goodwood Festival of Speed from Friday through to Sunday and will be driving this iconic machine up the famous Goodwood hill. To make the whole occasion even more evocative, it will be one of the Rothmans Porsches and Marino will be sharing driving duties with Derek Bell, five times a Le Mans 24 Hour winner, a former Sportscar World Champion and F1 driver.

Marino Franchitti at Sebring, March 2011

Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt

"As a young boy my racing hero was Derek Bell and the car he was winning in at that point, the Rothmans Porsche 956, was my dream car, and it's pretty surreal to think I'll be sharing one of them with him this weekend at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. To say it's a dream come true would be a huge understatement!" said Marino. "I'll be having a run or two in the Noble M600 as well which should be a lot of fun and as always I'm excited about the opportunity to see some iconic cars, drivers and riders in action."

The Porsche 956's dominated the 1982 and 1983 racing seasons and were built originally by the Porsche factory in Weissach in response to the FIA's regulations conforming to the category Group C. Porsche's programme was lead by their Project Manager at that time, the one and only Norbert Singer, who has since become synonymous with all Porsche's seventeen wins at Le Mans. In 1982 Porsche took a clean sweep of the Le Mans 24 Hour podium taking first, second and third places.

The Porsche 956 had been built to replace the all dominant Porsche 935 and 936 models, and with a power output of 620bhp it could easily reach speeds in excess of 350kph. Not that Marino will be achieving those speeds this weekend, but no doubt his heart will be racing at the pure enjoyment of it all.

by: marino franchitti PR/kwa