Chandhok has ‘lucky’ escape from fiery Ferrari at Goodwood 

Ex-F1-racer-turned-pundit Chandhok was taking part in the Lavant Cup race on Saturday when the Ferrari 250 GTO dropped oil, causing a dramatic 360 spin amid flames and plumes of smoke. 

Thankfully, Chandhok emerged unscathed from the incident. 

Explaining his frightening experience, he told Goodwood.com: “The 250 GTO is one of my absolute dream cars.

“I was pinching myself. The owner was lovely and so happy for me to go out and enjoy it. The race was fun but I wasn’t really going to be catching the front runners.

“So part-way around, I was just thinking to myself, ‘how cool is this? I’m in a GTO at Goodwood!’. Then coming out of Lavant onto the straight – I was in second and cruising – I heard a bang and the back wheels locked up. 

“As I turned I saw flames, so I got right off the track safely, to minimise oil going down and get out of the way.” 

The 39-year-old Indian admitted he was “lucky” in a post on X (formerly Twitter). 

“Obviously I was shaken but the Marshals, the owner, were all great,” Chandhok continued. “The owner’s absolute first priority was that I was okay. He was extremely understanding.

“The owners deserve so much credit. They send these cars that were designed 60 years ago out racing, that are worth so much, understanding that things can go wrong and that these things happen. He told me, he wants to get the car fixed and get it back on track at Goodwood soon.”

A representative of the owner said: "The internet will love it. It’s to be expected. I can see it now – 'at least it's raced', 'that'll be expensive', 'too dangerous', 'that nearly blew up and destroyed Goodwood’.

"It didn't. It has a hole in the engine and the onboard fire extinguisher did its job. Karun is fine, which was our first concern, let's be clear. We race knowing they break.

“In basic terms, it was engine failure, as does happen in racing, as these engines are ‘highly strung’. We don’t know the actual cause internally until it’s taken back and checked, but there was some internal failure, which caused a hole in the side of the sump, that let the oil out towards the exhaust which was the spectacular ‘explosion’ you saw. 

“The engine locking and dropping oil is what span Karun, who was uber skilled getting it off the track, as we saw, minimising the effect on the other competitors.

“It’s nothing unusual. No one bats an eyelid when a Formula 1 engine blows up. These cars are 50-year-old technology and occasionally one will blow up no matter how well-prepared."