Gallery:Goodwood Festival of Speed 2012

Pinning down exactly what Goodwood Festival of Speed is isn't terribly easy. But, should you have never heard of it, imagine a weird amalgam of a posho's sprint meeting, motor show, beer garden and F1 practice session. Which is precisely as marvelous as it sounds.

Needless to say, Top Gear was there, camera in hand, snapping all the best bits. And all you have to do to see ‘em is click forth...

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20 cylinders gird their loins for a spin up Lord March's drive. 

Punters line up to watch people crash. Luckily, we managed to keep our steed shiny side up.

Former Grand Prix winner, motorcycle road racer and Formula One driver, John Surtees, schools young Vettel in the delicate art of AWESOMENESS.

A WRC Toyota Corolla interrupted our nature wee. 

Pink. To make the boys wink. Presumably. 

Citroen's winner of annual Employee That Looks Most Like Steven Mangan competition gets a weekend cleaning mud off cars with a spatula.

Sir Stirling shows the young bloods a trick or two. Lesson one: string-back gloves.  

Lord March tries to clear the grey skies with POWER. 

"Smell my finger"

Jenson spent most of the weekend looking for his keys. 

"If I knew when I last had them I'd know where they are!"

"Perhaps I left them under those bikes."

The Irving Vincent 3000 hosts a very convincing Power Rangers impression.

Bags of negative camber's dialled in for the hill. 

We detected colossal amounts of awesome in this sector. 

Some say he drives a lorry on the weekends...  

Chris Evans' Magnificent Seven were, erm, pretty magnificent.

US car customiser, Jesse James, showcases one of his delicate creations with quintessentially American restraint. 

And here's the man himself. Fun fact: Jesse played linebacker at the University of California Riverside.

A man lets all the smoke out of his rear tyre. 

Hey, look! A Jordan-Ford 191!

This is the best henge... in the world. 

Loud racers. A posh bloke's front lawn. A very cool sprint track. This is why Goodwoopd Festival of Speed's awesome. 

Jaguar gather up more interest for its really rather smashing looking F-Type convertible.

Tyres are BAD and must be PUNISHED.

Young Vettel still can't get the hang of hill starts.  

Lotus-Cosworths wear the coolest livery in the history of EVER. 

1981 Zakspeed Ford Capri: Bodie and Doyle's wet dream. 

This 1985 LCR-Yamaha TZ500 Sidecar looked utterly, deeply terrifying. 

Wheelbase shmeelbase. 

This McLaren-Cosworth M14A beamed in from 1970. It sounded like Brian Blessed on the brink of a crisis. 

Sad Lancia Stratos is sad. 

Rallying most iconic outline - the Subaru Impreza WRC. 

Another rallying icon takes on Goodwood's forest stage: a Ford Escort RS1800. 

Manparts the size of watermelons are required to spank this up the hill.