Matich & McLaren Reunite at Goodwood Festival of Speed

There will be a uniquely Australian influence at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed in July.

The 1970 Australian Grand Prix winning McLaren M10B driven by Frank Matich will be driven by Matich’s son Kris. The 2023 Goodwood Festival of Speed will be celebrating 60 years of McLaren Racing and this very successful McLaren Formula 5000 has been invited to participate in a special McLaren Racing Celebration at Goodwood.

The Australian connection continues with current car owner Graham Wadsworth, an acclaimed Automotive Designer who spent over two decades in Melbourne as part of the Ford Australia design team designing several Ford Falcons. Graham, now living in the UK is working with McLaren Cars on the road car design team.

The McLaren M10B is under the care and preparation of Frank Matich’s Chief Engineer from his F5000 days, Derek Kneller a Brit who is one of “the originals” working for McLaren Racing in the mid 1960’s. Kneller was recruited by Frank Matich in 1969 and stayed in Australia until Matich retired in 1974 and was an instrumental part of the Matich Team for all the Formula 5000 era.

Frank Matich had a close relationship with Bruce McLaren and provided significant development input to McLaren which led to the development of the “B” spec McLaren M10B F5000 a car that turned out to be the most successful McLaren F5000 model ever.

Graham Wadsworth said "when we received the invitation from Goodwood to have the car be part of the 60 Year McLaren celebration, I thought wouldn’t it be great to have 'a Matich' driving the car to celebrate that fantastic association that led to the development of the M10B, so I reached out to Kris Matich who immediately agreed. This will be a wonderful celebration of the Matich/McLaren association which I am proud to own a small but important piece of."

Kris Matich said, "just attending Goodwood is a bucket list item for me but to be actually driving one of my Fathers cars, and such a successful McLaren race car, is just on another level. I am very grateful to Graham for the invitation and look forward to helping recognize my Dad and his team’s achievements during this amazing era of Australian Motorsport."

Graham Wadsworth is one of the participants in the content series Shannons Design to Driveway – an unprecedented summary of Australian car design. Watch Graham’s Episode 

Also, we have drawn the lucky winner of the Goodwood Revival Competition, Find Out More.