Flying the Scottish flag

Young Ecurie Ecosse driver Chloe Grant gets to grips with the Ecurie Ecosse Jaguar C-type at Goodwood. Matthew Hayward is Octane's witness

- Matthew Hayward

Scotland has an extremely rich history of generating successful racing and rally drivers Stewart, McRae, Coulthard, Franchitti, McNish, Clark, to name just a few. But when it comes to Scottish racing teams there's one name that stands out: Ecurie Ecosse.

Translated from French, it means 'Scotland stable', and while this team put Scotland on the racing map when it won Le Mans in 1956 and 1957 with a Jaguar D-type, the team now focuses on supporting young Scottish drivers. We're at Goodwood today, joined by not just one, but two Scottish racing drivers. We suspect you are familiar with Gregor Fisken - as well as being the founder of Fiskens Fine Historic Automobiles in London, he happens to be rather a handy driver himself, having raced at Le Mans four times - but we're also here to meet Chloe Grant, the first female Ecurie Ecosse team member. Not only that, having been born in Perth in 2006, she embodies the young, Scottish heartbeat of the team's heyday.

The selection of machinery here at Goodwood - its Fisken's own track-day is phenomenal, including an Aston Martin DBR9, Blower Bentley recreation and none other than the 1962 Ecurie Ecosse Tojeiro-Buick. And sitting innocently in the paddock is one of the most significant racing C-types in existence. We'll get into its history later, but for now all you need to know is that this is XKC006 - the original Ecurie Ecosse C-type, owned and raced by Ian Stewart, one of the team's three founders.

Today is a celebration of Ecurie Ecosse, then, and what better way to celebrate than with its youngest modernday team member getting behind the wheel of one of the most important cars in the team's history? Chloe has been racing since 2013, getting into karting at just seven years old. In 2020 she was the youngest driver to gain a Motorsport UK Racing Driver's Licence. She was 13.