Video: Onboard 300mph Hennessey Venom F5 at Goodwood with Alex Brundle

24th June 2022

Seán Ward

There’s a hint in the name, but the Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard sees many, many speedy cars career up the Goodwood Hill every year. The Hennessey Venom F5 is one of the wildest and fastest cars we’ve ever seen here. So driving it in the wet is quite an intense experience.

Cast your mind back to 2011 and you might remember a yellow brute on the Hill called the Hennessey Venom. It was Hennessey’s first all-out sportscar and, as such, had truly obscene performance. Its twin-turbo LS7 7.0-litre V8 produced 1,261PS (927kW) and 1,566Nm (1,155lb ft) of torque, all of which went to the rear wheels via a six-speed manual gearbox. Even changing gears yourself, because the car weighed just 1,244kg, it could hit 62mph in 2.5 seconds and, in tests but not as official records, hit 270mph.

Eleven years on we have its successor, the Hennessey Venom F5, and as you might have guessed it is similarly bonkers. This time it’s a 6.6-litre twin-turbo V8 with 1,817PS (1,336kW) and because the car weighs 1,360kg, in a test that wasn’t even about speed the car hit 271mph. Is 300mph on the cards? We’d certainly imagine so…

On Thursday morning at the 2022 Festival Alex Brundle took to the Hill in the Venom F5 and, unfortunately for him, it was raining very hard indeed. Still, he seemed very happy to see what more than 1,800PS going to the rear wheels only was like when there was no grip whatsoever. You're a brave man, Alex...