In Top Gear, a BBC motoring show, one of the show's regular features since 2002 is various forms of racing the presenters undertake, either against each other or against invited guests. The show has featured a number of epic races, where one of the presenters — Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May, and occasionally The Stig — drives a car in a race against the others in another form of transport. These races typically involve Clarkson driving the car while Hammond and May take the same journey by combinations of plane, train, or ferry. May has said that the races are planned to be as close as possible.Top Gear, Series 11 Episode 4 1:01:13 Of the long-distance races so far, the car has won the vast majority of the races, with the exceptions of the cross-London epic, in which the car was beaten by a bicycle, a boat on the Thames and public transport; Ferrari Daytona vs. Powerboat, in which the boat won; Shelby Mustang GT500 vs. High Speed Train, in which the train won; and the Arabian Peninsula race, in which the alternative 'money no-object' transportation options beat the Bugatti Chiron.
Races Aston Martin DB9 vs. French TGV – distance 900 miles Series Four, Episode One (9 May 2004)
To prove what was the fastest way to get to the South of France for a summer holiday, Clarkson drove an Aston Martin DB9 from the studio in Dunsfold, Surrey to Monte Carlo, against Hammond and May who took the Eurostar and the French TGV. Hammond and May began by walking two miles to a nearby bus stop, and were confident that it would be "impossible" for the car to win once they boarded their sequence of trains. That being said, Clarkson did manage to build a substantial early lead, covering 40 miles in the DB9 by the time Hammond and May had even reached their bus stop and, despite encountering heavy traffic on the outskirts of Dover, Clarkson managed to make the 10:00am ferry to Calais. By this point, Hammond and May's bus had only just arrived at Guildford railway station, and when their South West Trains service to London Waterloo arrived just over an hour later, Clarkson had already disembarked in Calais. Despite changing to the substantially faster Eurostar at Waterloo station, Clarkson managed to maintain a significant lead; by the time Hammond and May reached Gare du Nord, Clarkson was already south of Troyes and heading towards Dijon, 172 miles ahead of them, and they had just 50 minutes to cross the entire city to catch their TGV connection to Nice. Despite Clarkson making distracting phone-calls to try and slow them down, they successfully took the RER to Gare de Lyon from where they just managed to make their connection to the French TGV which would take them all the way to Nice. Once they were settled in on their train, May compared the contest to the earlier Blue Train Races, won by a Rover Light Six and Bentley Speed Six against Le Train Bleu or The Blue Train.
At this point, however, the race turned. Despite Clarkson covering far more distance in the time he'd taken than either Hammond or May were anticipating, the TGV's significantly faster speeds, allied to the car being hampered by the French speed limits, meant that Hammond and May took the lead for the first time in the race just south of Valence with just 200 miles to go. However, the train's journey had to take Hammond and May first down to Marseille and then along the coastline to Nice. Not only was this a much further distance to travel than Clarkson had to cover in the car which could drive straight to Monte Carlo, but the train had to slow down to accommodate the bends of the coastline. Moreover, because of the DB9 doing an impressive 19 miles per gallon throughout the race, Clarkson would not have to lose any more time stopping for fuel. When Hammond and May arrived in Nice, despite being only 15 miles from Monte Carlo, they had to make another train change to get there, and it was likely whilst they were on this train that Clarkson managed to re-take the lead. He reached the finishing point at the Café de Paris well before his co-presenters, and had even had time to order several drinks and some food before Hammond and May arrived, looking distinctly dishevelled from having run all the way from the train station. Winner: Car
DVD release: This race was released as part of the Top Gear: Revved Up: Thrashing, Crashing and Trashing DVD, where the race was shown in its entirety and with no breaks.
Ferrari 612 Scaglietti vs. passenger jet – distance 650 miles Series Five, Episode Eight (19 December 2004)
In what proved to be one of the closest Top Gear long-distance races ever staged, Clarkson tried to beat Hammond and May in a race from the studio in Dunsfold, Surrey to Verbier, Switzerland to find out the quickest way to get to the Alps for a skiing holiday. Clarkson drove a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti, whilst Hammond and May used public transport, chiefly using a plane to get from Heathrow to Geneva. Setting off at 5:30am, Hammond and May began by walking to a local bus stop, where they had to wait for over an hour before their bus to Guildford arrived. They then took a train to Woking and a RailAir coach to Heathrow Airport. Clarkson meanwhile drove to Dover to catch the ferry to France, and not only managed to leave English soil before Hammond and May had even reached the airport, but by the time Hammond and May did arrive at Heathrow, Clarkson had already disembarked in Calais. However, after a 90-minute check-in, Hammond and May finally boarded their plane whilst Clarkson had only covered 100 miles since docking, far less than he had been hoping to achieve. Indeed, the plane actually arrived in Geneva early, so by the time Hammond and May had got off the plane, Clarkson was still only halfway between Paris and Dijon, about 250 miles behind. This huge deficit, coupled with the fact that Hammond and May were about to transfer onto the extremely efficient Swiss public transport network, made Clarkson start to appreciate the enormity of the task ahead of him and that his chances of winning were almost nil. Clarkson then encountered a contraflow when he was still around two hours away from the Swiss border, which slowed him even further. To make matters even worse, he was stopped by the police just south of Dijon for speeding, which cost him a further 25 minutes as well as a £60 fine.
Whilst Clarkson was talking to the police, Hammond and May were already on their train from Geneva to Martigny. However, this much slower mode of transport allowed Clarkson to start closing the gap, and, by taking advantage of encountering very little traffic after being stopped by the police, Clarkson and the car had more than halved the distance by the time Hammond and May arrived at Martigny. Hammond and May were also forced to wait for a whole hour for their next train, so when they did finally leave Martigny station for Le Châble an hour later, Clarkson had managed to reach the Swiss border. He continued to close the gap so much that he was just 40 miles behind Hammond and May when they reached Le Châble where they boarded their final mode of public transport: a coach ride up 12 miles of mountain road from Le Châble to Verbier. When they arrived at the Verbier bus depot, Hammond and May had to continue their journey on foot, but having caught up on the mountain road, Clarkson drove right past them on the main street of Verbier, barely a few hundred yards away from the finishing point, prompting May to hurl his suitcase after the car in disgust. When Hammond and May eventually reached the finishing point at Lodge Hotel where Clarkson was waiting for them, beer in hand, all three presenters were in total disbelief at how close the race had been, with Clarkson expressing his opinion that no-one would believe that it was "for real". Winner: Car
DVD release: This race was released as part of the Top Gear: The Races and Winter Blunderland DVDs, albeit in a truncated form. It was a never included in a commercial release.
Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren vs. cruise ferry – distance 1320 miles Series Six, Episode Six (3 July 2005)
In what is still the longest Top Gear race in terms of both time and distance, Clarkson in a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren (a car that had been featured in both Series Three and Series Four, including setting the lap-record round the Top Gear track) raced Hammond and May from Heathrow Airport to Oslo, Norway. With the car having so far beaten a train and a plane, Hammond and May decided to use a Cruise Ferry as their primary mode of public transport. Before setting off, May did admit that he had every confidence in the car being able to beat the boat, but thought that the physical toll of driving the huge distance would be too much for Clarkson. Whilst Hammond and May would still be moving whilst they were sleeping, Clarkson would have to stop at some point to rest. Hammond and May's route would involve taking a flight from Heathrow to Newcastle, before taking a 17-hour long ferry journey across the North Sea to Kristiansand, Norway and would then use a powerboat to cover the short remaining distance to reach the finishing point in Oslo. Clarkson's journey meanwhile would take him through the UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, covering a distance of well over 1,300 miles (about 2,100 km).
With the race starting at midday from Heathrow's car park, Hammond and May were able to check in straight away, but the time of their flight meant that Clarkson was able to reach the Channel Tunnel before their plane actually left the runway. However, Clarkson discovered that the 1:30pm train his car was booked on "didn't exist" - whereas Hammond and May presumed that he must have missed it - and so was still stuck in Folkestone by the time Hammond and May had left Newcastle Airport, from where they got on a bus to connect to Newcastle's ferry terminal. Clarkson's journey had been so delayed that by the time he arrived in Calais, Hammond and May's ferry had already departed from Newcastle harbour. Although Clarkson was able to travel through France and Belgium without any difficulty, he encountered appalling rush-hour traffic as he entered The Netherlands, and so he had to work out a new, longer route across the north of the country that avoided the traffic jams. However, as he was crossing the Afsluitdijk, with still over 830 miles to go, Hammond and May's ferry was nearly half-way through its entire journey to Kristiansand. Despite this deficit, he remained confident that any time he had lost in Holland he would be able to make up on Germany's Autobahns, many of which had no mandated speed limits. Indeed, by being able to hit speeds upwards of , he took the lead in the race and was able to reach the Danish border just as Hammond and May's ferry was entering the last third of its journey. Even with the significant delays at Folkestone and the traffic in Holland, he had covered 650 miles in 12 hours, but as midnight came and went, Clarkson's tiredness began to kick in. Despite stopping at several petrol stations for coffee, he eventually decided to pull over at a service station just outside Copenhagen and went to sleep in the car.