Romain Dumas guided Ford’s Super Mustang Mach-E up the Goodwood hill in 41.98 seconds during Sunday’s Timed Shoot-Out. That mark beat the next quickest entry, a new Gen4 Formula E car driven by Daniel Ticktum, by 0.48 seconds. It also left the rest of a strong field more than four seconds behind.
Ford had previously won the top spot with the SuperVan 4.2 in 2024 and the F 150 Lightning SuperTruck in 2025, making this their third consecutive win. So this came as no surprise, but it was still cause for celebration for Dumas, who won his fifth Shoot-Out overall and third in a row. This time it was with the electric Super Mustang Mach-E, a beast of a car designed from the ground up to be a real electric hillclimb monster, rather than a production car with an electric motor slapped in. These three UHP 6 phase motors provide 1600 horsepower, but they are distributed to all four wheels, which helps keep it on track. The power comes from a 50 kWh battery pack, and regenerative braking can reach 710 kW, which should help slow it down on the tiny course.
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They’d made a few changes, including a large rear wing, lowering the ride height, upgrading the brakes, and adjusting the suspension. All to go through the brief yet demanding course as quickly as possible. That new aero kit generates a remarkable 6900 pounds of downforce at 150 mph, which you can guarantee helps when you’re on a narrow strip of tarmac with walls and hay bales surrounding you. And you know Dumas is fairly good at managing tight courses. In fact, just three weeks before, he won the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in the identical car in 8 minutes, 18 seconds. He had come from a 12-mile mountain route and was still able to maintain a good speed on the 1.16-mile English hill.
Qualifying demonstrated that the car was pretty quick, but Sunday appeared to be a challenge, with the heat and dust making grip difficult for many of the drivers. Dumas got out to a shaky start, but eventually gained momentum and carried it all the way to the finish. It ended up being the top two electric cars for the first time in the event’s history, and to make matters even better for Ford, all combustion vehicles were well behind.
It’s noteworthy to state that the time difference between first and second is less than half a second, but the time difference between second and third is more than four seconds. When competing against great drivers and automobiles, that kind of margin is significant. The top ten results were rather unambiguous, with a 1974 Shadow DN4 finishing third at 46 points 31 seconds and a VW Polo Rallycross coming in fourth at 46 points 32 seconds.
Ford collaborated with the STARD team to develop build this monster. They had also collaborated with them on the previous two winning electric vehicles. Each time, they refine what works and what doesn’t, and this knowledge is taken forward into larger racing efforts and future road car development. So, even though this was a unique hillclimb car, it remains relevant. Ford even stated that this 41.98-second performance was faster than their own computer simulations predicted the car could do on this track, indicating that there is still more work to be done.
