Kankunnen turns up the heat at Goowood with Supersports

Juha Kankunnen, the four-time world rally champion, turned up the heat at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed when he was reunited with his world ice-speed record breaking Bentley Continental Supersports convertible.
 
The muscular 6.0 litre, 12-cylinder Bentley with its distinctive black and bright red livery proved to be one of the real head-turners in Goodwood’s famous Supercar Paddock.
 
Earlier this year, Kankunnen and the all-wheel drive Continental Supersports convertible set a new world best of 205.48mph (330.695km/h) on a 16.5km long ice track on a 70cm-thick layer of Baltic Sea ice, off the coast of Finland.
 
Goodwood’s famous Hill Climb and three days of hot, summer sunshine did not present Kankunnen with the extreme challenge he faced on the ice track. That did not stop him however from delivering for the large Festival crowds a series of typically blistering runs with the 640PS (631bhp) Supersports, the world’s fastest production convertible road car,
 
“Driving this very special Bentley Continental in front of the packed Goodwood grandstands was a special experience for me,” Juha explained.
 
“Driving on a frozen sea was a unique challenge and only a few Bentley engineers and my support crew were there to witness the new world record. So it was a pleasure to provide a glimpse of the capabilities of this Bentley to a huge audience of motorsport enthusiasts on a beautiful summer’s day.”
 
Kankunnen was joined in the Bentley ‘corner’ of the Supercar Paddock by five-time Le Mans winner, Derek Bell and the new Bentley Continental GT.
 
Bell, who has worked with Bentley for over a decade as a professional driving consultant for the company’s road car programme as well as helping to guide the Company’s victorious Le Mans campaign in 2003, was also formidably quick up the hill.
 
“Driving the GT at Goodwood was a lot of fun. The new car maintains all the luxury and refinement for which Bentley is renowned, but is even quicker, dynamically sharper and more powerful than its predecessor.”