(June 18, 2019) The Volkswagen ID.R is set to defend its title at the prestigious “Goodwood Festival of Speed” in West Sussex, England, July 4 to 7.  Last year, Romain Dumas, at the wheel of the fully-electric race car, set a new record for electric vehicles, completing the mile-long route of the Goodwood Hillclimb in just 43.86 seconds — the fastest time for 15 years.

A mere five weeks after breaking the lap record for electric vehicles on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife, the ID.R — the sporty spearhead of the ID. family of fully-electric production vehicles —i s ready to take on its next challenge.

Last year, the ID.R took on Goodwood just three weeks after the record-breaking run at Colorado’s Pikes Peak and used the same technical configuration. This year, Volkswagen Motorsports will field an ID.R that has been prepared specifically for Goodwood.

The engineers’ focus is on a drive configuration designed specifically for the short route. “We have developed another evolutionary stage of the ID.R—a sprint version with smaller batteries, in order to further reduce weight,” says François-Xavier Demaison, technical director at Volkswagen Motorsport. “We have also opted for a far more aggressive energy management strategy for the short distance. You need very high output for a very short time for the sprint in Goodwood.”

Since it was held for the first time in 1993, the Goodwood Festival of Speed has developed into one of the world’s biggest motorsport events, attracting roughly 180,000 visitors every year. They are treated to a weekend of show drives and timed races featuring motorcycles, rally cars, and racing and Formula cars from every era of motorsport.

Motorsport legends go head to head with the current crop of professional racing drivers on a sprint route that’s just over a mile and a 1.6-mile gravel track. Very few events offer such a fine opportunity to observe how automotive technology has developed over the decades.

“The Goodwood Festival of Speed is a fascinating bridge between the past, present and future of the automobile. As such, it is the perfect stage, on which to demonstrate the performance of Volkswagen’s electric technology,” says Dr. Frank Welsch, member of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand with responsibility for Technical Development.