Lawson left shaking after driving Bruce McLaren's Le Mans-winning Ford GT40 at Goodwood

Liam Lawson was still sitting in the cockpit, hands trembling, long after everyone else had climbed out. The Racing Bulls Formula 1 driver drove the #2 Ford GT40 — the car his fellow New Zealander Bruce McLaren famously piloted to victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans — up the hillclimb at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, and the moment clearly hit differently.

“My hands are still shaking. Very, very special, obviously, a lot of New Zealand history in this car,” Lawson said from the cockpit immediately after completing the run. “I got to drive a road-going GT40 last year, and the whole time, all I could think about was this car.”

What makes the story even more striking is how it came about. The drive was entirely unplanned — a spontaneous ask that paid off. “I didn’t expect to come here and drive it,” Lawson revealed. “I saw it today, and I asked. I said, ‘Can I please? That’d be really, really special.’ And the owner was kind enough to let me drive it.”

When asked whether the run had ticked off a bucket-list item, the New Zealander left little doubt. “100%. That’s why everyone’s out of their cars, and I’m still sitting in there, so I’m probably going to stay in here for a little bit.”

Lawson was candid about the sensory experience of piloting a machine so removed from the modern Formula 1 cars he races every weekend. “The feeling you get when driving a car like this is completely… It’s indescribable. It’s not like anything that we drive currently: the vibration, the frequency, the noise.”

He admitted he came close to exceeding the rev limit he had been given. “I was given an RPM limit not to go over, but you can’t help yourself. I didn’t go over it too much. You just can’t help yourself when it starts coming up in the upper [rev range], when the car just starts singing, and it’s incredible.”

For Lawson, the connection to McLaren — a motorsport icon who not only won Le Mans but also founded the constructor that bears his name — gave the moment a weight that went beyond the mechanical thrill. The #2 GT40 remains one of the most storied machines in endurance racing history, and for a young New Zealand driver still establishing himself in Formula 1, the chance to share even a hillclimb with that legacy was clearly something he will not forget.