Top Gear races

Top Gear is a BBC television series about motor vehicles, particularly cars.

Races against other transport
The show has featured a number of races where Jeremy Clarkson drives a car against Richard Hammond and James May taking the same journey using alternative modes of transport. The producers of Top Gear regularly reaffirm that the races DO take place for real, and that many of the other shots of the car at speed used in the films are recorded by retracing the journey over a few days. In the case of the Bugatti Veyron race, the Stig drove the car all the way back to Italy, although the shots are filmed so that it is not completely apparent that Clarkson is not driving. This 32-minute feature took 33 16-hour days to edit.

In all of the races to date, the car has won when driven by Clarkson, albeit very marginally on three of the four occasions.

Car vs. Train (Season 4, Episode 1)
*Car: Aston Martin DB9
The first race that took place was between an Aston Martin DB9, driven by Clarkson, and the Eurostar train and the TGV high-speed train through France. Hammond and May started the race by walking two miles to the local bus-stop, taking the bus to Guildford, then catching a train to London Waterloo. Meanwhile, Clarkson, despite hitting traffic around Dover, successfully caught the ferry to Calais in France, then began his journey south. Hammond and May caught the Eurostar service to Paris arriving at Gare du Nord with Clarkson already 172 miles ahead. The TGV train, however, allowed them to finally overtake Clarkson around 300 miles from the finish line. Clarkson, however, had the advantage of being able to take the shortest route to Monte Carlo, whereas the train carrying his co-presenters had to go right down to the coast and slow down; they also had to change trains one more time. Because of this, Clarkson managed to reach the finish line around fifteen minutes ahead of the others.

Winner: Aston Martin DB9

Car vs. Plane (Season 5, Episode 8)
*Car: Ferrari 612 Scaglietti
This race started at the Top Gear base in Dunsfold and finished at a ski lodge in Verbier. Clarkson drove the route in a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti. Hammond and May took a bus to Guildford and a train to Woking where they took a Rail-Air coach to Heathrow before flying to Geneva. Then, a train journey took them to Martigny station and a good deal of waiting around before their connection to Verbier and a coach ride, followed finally by a short walk up to the lodge and the finish line. Despite being stopped for speeding in France, costing him 25 minutes, Clarkson overtook Hammond and May just a couple of hundred yards from the finish, much to the disbelief of all concerned. According to the show's website, if Hammond and May hadn't missed an earlier bus by just a few seconds, they would have won.

Winner: Ferrari 612 Scaglietti

Car vs. Boat (Season 6, Episode 6)
*Car: Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren
The next race was from Heathrow Airport in London to Oslo, the capital of Norway. Clarkson had to drive about 1300 miles through eight countries including Holland, Belgium, Germany, Denmark and Sweden using a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. Hammond and May took a plane to Newcastle, a bus to the docks, where they boarded a ferry to Kristiansand, spending most of the night at an onboard nightclub. When they docked, they boarded a specially-arranged speedboat, intending to take it all the way to Oslo. However, the engine of the speedboat failed en-route. They took another boat but amazingly, the hull was damaged by the rough waves, forcing the pair to return to shore in a non-English-speaking, unknown seaside town, where with no money, they tried to find a bus to take them to the finish line. Clarkson, despite having stopped to get some sleep, arrived in Oslo so far ahead of his co-presenters that he was able to fly home and eat his dinner before they finally reached the finish.

Winner: Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren

===Car vs. Private Plane(via TGV+Bus) (Season 7, Episode 5)===
*Car: Bugatti Veyron
This race was delivering a truffle from Alba in Northern Italy to a restaurant at the top of Tower 42 in London. Clarkson drove a Bugatti Veyron, whilst May piloted a Cessna 182 light aircraft with Hammond as his noticeably reluctant passenger. Clarkson won, but this time by a very small margin, after May and Hammond were forced to land early as May wasn't qualified to fly at night, forcing them to catch the Eurostar and complete the last leg of the race in a bus.

Winner:Bugatti Veyron

Car vs. Rocket Powered Rollerblades (Season 10, Episode 5)
*Car: Aston Martin V8 Vantage
This Road Runner inspired challenge saw Richard Hammond squaring up to a professional rollerblader equipped with a rocket pack - capable of matching the V8's top speed. The V8 won over a quarter-mile - but only by a matter of seconds.

Winner:Aston Martin V8 Vantage

Car vs. Fighter Jet (Season 10, Episode 3)
*Car: Bugatti Veyron
Richard Hammond raced against a Royal Air Force Eurofighter Typhoon. The race was held at RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire in an effort to see if the world's fastest car could defeat a fighter plane. In the words of the programme to make the 2 mile race fairer, while the car would compete normally, racing for 1 mile then turning around and racing back, the fighter would have to climb to an altitude of 1 mile before returning to the start line. Richard lost to the Typhoon as he was about 500 yards from the finish line, the Typhoon swooped down and flew across it before Richard could drive across it, making RAF Squadron Leader Jim Walls the victor in the race.

Winner: Eurofighter Typhoon

Car vs. Bike vs. Boat vs. Public Transport (Season 10, Episode 5)
*Car: Mercedes-Benz GL-Class
All four presenters took alternative modes of transportation in a race from one side of London to the other during the Monday morning rush-hour. They started at Kew Bridge (on the western side of the North Circular) and finished at London City Airport (on the eastern side). Hammond went by bike, Clarkson by boat, May by car and The Stig by public transport (a bus, the London Underground and the Docklands Light Railway). Hammond won the race with Clarkson a close second. The Stig finished third with May turning up 15 minutes later, having been bogged down in traffic and stopped by the Police to check his filming permit, although only for four minutes. Referencing recent scandals involving misleading editing of UK television programmes, the presenters joked that clever editing had concealed the fact that May had arrived long before Hammond, Clarkson's boat exploded and he was killed, that May passed Hammond with his head stuck between railings, and that London didn't even have a river, so Clarkson couldn't have competed.

Official Winner: Bike

Declared Winner:Mercedes-Benz GL Class

List of races against athletes

Other races have involved one of the presenters in a car against an athlete:

*Ford SportKa driven by May against a (Racing) Homing Pigeon. The race was won by the pigeon despite the car being fitted with satellite navigation. This was mainly due to May mis-programming the Satellite Navigation system in the car. Although the Racing Pigeon would still have won by a long margin, even if May had driven the route correctly.

Winner: Racing Pigeon

*Fiat Nuova Panda with Clarkson driving against runner AC Muir on a modified London Marathon route on a weekday morning rush hour.

Winner: Marathon Runner

*Audi RS4 with Clarkson driving up a mountain road against rock climbers (Leo Houlding and Tim Emmet) climbing the same distance vertically, then racing back down (with the climbers BASE jumping).

Race 1 Winner: Leo Holding by 8 minutes
Race 2 Winner: Leo Holding who finished in 20 seconds

*Renault Clio III with May driving down the narrow streets of Castle of São Jorge's district in Lisbon against Gee Atherton, a downhill bike racer, which May nicknamed, because of the helmet, Darth Vader.

Winner: Gee Atherton

*Porsche Cayenne Turbo S with Hammond racing down a 2-mile long rally course in Cyprus against an army parachutist starting and finishing at the exact same location in the air as Hammond was on the ground.

Winner: Army Parachutist

*A Tomcat, a very powerful Land Rover-based 4x4 equipped with a 4-litre TVR V8 engine, driven by Hammond, who described it as "a combination of British technology and Icelandic levels of lunacy", against a 'driven' by along an icy stretch of water in Iceland. According to Hammond during the episode, the kayak won, but examining the footage, it seems that Hammond was actually on the bridge before the kayak went under it.

Official Winner: Tomcat
Declared Winner: Kayak

*Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution driven by Norwegian rally champion Henning Solberg with May co-piloting, against Hammond and the Norwegian Olympic Bobsled team, each taking similar routes down a mountain in Lillehammer, Norway.

Winner:Bobsleigh

*Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution Group N rally car and a Bowler Wildcat driven against an mountainboarder down the "Green mile" an all-terrain boarding course. While the Mitsubishi lost, the Bowler managed to defeat the mountainboarder.

Winner: Bowler Wildcat

*Peugeot 207 with May driving a six mile course through the streets of Liverpool from a car park to the Liver Building against two traceurs (Daniel Ilabaca and Kerbie). The traceurs won the race, despite May thinking initially he had won, by revealing that they had not only arrived first, but had climbed to the top of the building.

Winner: Daniel Ilabaca and Kerbie

* Mercedes SL 500 raced around the track by the Stig whilst Ronnie O'Sullivan had to pot 14 Snooker Balls.

Winner: Ronnie O'Sullivan

Other races

*Nürburgring
Jeremy was challenged to do a lap of the long circuit of the famous Nürburgring race track in a diesel powered Jaguar S-type under 10minutes. most of the times were close but just over. on the last run he was given, he managed to do a 9:59. after Sabine Schmitz(his tutor on the day) found out,she mocked him saying that she could do that in a van(see below) and went out the track in the Jaguar - blitzing the time, the second visit is with Richard Hammond in a Ford Transit Anniversary but driven by Sabine Schmitz in an attempt to beat Clarkson's time around the Nürburgring race track. Despite stripping the van of everything that wasn't needed (including Hammond) and some quick D.I.Y aerodynamic modifications Sabine still lost by 9 seconds, taking the van round in an impressive 10 minutes 8 seconds.

Times
Jeremy Clarkson in Jaguar S-Type (9:59),
Sabine Schmitz in Jaguar S-Type (9:12)
Sabine Schmitz in Ford Transit 1 (10:23,78),
Sabine Schmitz in Ford Transit 2 (10:08,49)

* Another race involved the Stig, driving a Caterham Super Seven, leaving the factory in Caterham, Surrey, driving to Scotland's Knockhill Racing Circuit and crossing the start/finish line before Clarkson, Hammond and May could build one from scratch in a pit garage at the side of the circuit, and get it across the start line. The car had a GPS tracking device installed, allowing the team to keep track of the Stig's progress. The presenters eventually managed to build the car, with some difficulties including Clarkson not wanting to read the instructions (resulting in him putting in the seats not only too early, but also putting one in backwards). With the Stig within a few miles, the presenters were in a panic , but managed to get their car across the line in time to win the race.It was ultimately revealed, when the Stig failed to show up, that he had been arrested by the Fife police for speeding.If the Stig had not been stopped,then he would have won.

Declared Winner: Jeremy,Richard and James

* A special episode of Top Gear between Series 9 and 10 featured a race between Jeremy Clarkson and James May (driving a modified Toyota Hilux pick-up) and Matty McNair and her dog sled team with Richard Hammond. They raced across the ice in the Arctic Circle from Resolute Bay in northern Canada to Isachsen, Ellef Ringnes Island (the site of the North Magnetic Pole in 1996), with Jeremy and James winning.

Winner: Toyota Hilux

* Richard Hammond raced Ireland's most expensive greyhound around Shelbourne's Greyhound track in a 2 lap race Olympic cycling style in a Mazda MX5

Winner: Greyhound

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