Original subtitles

Tonight, Compo takes me for a spin in a car from his youth.

Richard tries to drive a fast car without crashing.

And Lewis Hamilton faces his toughest test yet,

the Suzuki Liana.

Thank you very much, thank you. Thank you.

Hello and welcome to the BMW M5, which is very expensive.

However, I know of a car which does all the same sort of stuff for half the price,

so that's gotta be worth a look.

Even though it is a bit...

...Australian.

Welcome, everyone, to the VXR8.

Like the M5, it's a spacious four-door, five-seater saloon car,

with much leather, many buttons and a large boot.

Like the M5, it'll bumble about all day,

quietly and comfortably.

And like the M5, it's capable, when the mood takes you,

of being absolutely and completely bonkers.

This could only have come from a country that hadn't signed up to the Kyoto treaty.

For such a big, comfortable car,

it's staggeringly easy to drive very... Really fast.

It's got a six litre V8.

That's 414 horsepower.

0-60 in less than five seconds.

Its top speed, if you take the limiter off... Well, a 175.

And that's pretty quick.

And it's yours for just £35,000.

Now, for that sort of money what you'd normally be looking at

is a 3 litre BMW 5 Series, or a 3.2 litre Audi A6,

or a 2.8 litre Mercedes E-Class.

Now they're all very nice cars, they really are.

But they're not really in the same league

as the big V8.

They're all lost in my 6 litre shockwave!

In a simple drag race, it completely trounces them.

And we see much the same thing in the corners.

Out of the way, Germans!

Thank you.

This then delivers M5 power games for £30,000 less.

So what exactly are you missing out on?

Well, first of all, the BMW comes with a BMW badge.

That is worth its weight in myrrh.

Whereas this is being sold in Britain as a Vauxhall.

What's more, inside it's a bit like a Currys own brand stereo.

And of course, with such a big engine,

it's not what you'd call

economical.

And then there's the exterior.

With all its trinketry and price-drop TV jewellery, it's not exactly a wallflower.

But the main reason why this is

£30,000 cheaper than an M5 is simple.

It's about 30,000 times less complicated.

In an M5, there are seven different settings for the gearbox.

There are two for the differential.

You can even choose how much power you want from the engine.

It's like a Poggenpohl kitchen.

It's very hi tech, very German, very nice.

This though, this is...

This is more like a Barbie.

Honestly, I'm surprised you don't pour beer on it

when you want to turn it off.

You push the middle pedal when you want it to slow down.

You turn this big circular thing in front of you to make it go round corners.

And then you push the pedal on the right

when you want it to make more noise.

This car then, it's as dainty as a hobnail boot,

as feminine as a burst sausage.

And I've got to say...

I love it!

I'm sensing, just sensing from that, that maybe you quite like it.

- Oh, it is. It's great fun. It really is. - Would you have it over an M5?

No. And the problem is it looks so moronic.

It's Australian.

I know, with an American engine.

Anyway, we must now find out how fast this colonial double-act goes round our track.

And that of course means handing it over to our tame racing driver.

Some say... that when he slows down, brake lights come on in his buttocks.

And that if he'd been the manager of the England football squad last week,

he wouldn't have been a feckless, ginger,

gum-chewing buffoon who ruined it for all of us.

All we know is, he's called The Stig.

And we're off! And it's been raining,

but then it would do because it's England and it always rains!

37 degrees in Sydney today, everyone's at the beach!

There we go, first corner, English fella'll probably make a mess of it,

mine's The Stig, oh look, he's completely messed that up!

Ah, proper Aussie music there. Right, into Chicago,

right, he's hanging the arse out, you don't wanna do that in England,

you never know what might happen. Uh, Hammerhead, that's a shark

where I come from, not a bloody corner. Wollabongalongamongalooee,

that's a proper name for a corner. Okay.

Right, the Follow-through, let's see this limpwristed Pom open the taps.

Okay, second-to-last-corner, course if Alan Jones was driving, we'd be done by now.

Yeah, proper driver, Jones, man's man, really knew how to fry up a steak.

I saw him wrestle a goolie-goolie snake. He had fists the size of prawns!

They're Australian, these two.

Couple of Australians turn up to hear the time, and it is... are you ready?

- Beer O'Clock? - Beer O'Clock? Yep, well you can get going

because it's 1:31.3, so it's right here, look, I know it was wet,

Er... but it's still behind... everything from Europe.

And now, The News. Now, you know those Club Card points that you get in supermarkets

when you spend money?

Tesco's has announced this week that if you spend those vouchers on a car

- you get four times the value of the points. - Really? - They quadruple them.

Well that's quite good because I buy my pies from Tesco's, you know those little

steak ones with the gravy from the 'Finest' range with a really

- thick crusty topping? - Well, it, it works that for every hundred

pounds you spend, you get the equivalent of £4 back

in points towards your car.

- So how many pies a week do you eat? - Two.

- And how much are they? - £1.20.

£1.20, so for each one of those £1.20s you get...

- So you could be on your way to a car, mate. - Let's just work this one out.

You could have enough for a Ford Fiesta diesel in 2403 years.

Wow! You're gonna have to eat more pies. That's what you have to do; A lot more.

I can eat more pies than that hang on, I can work out that um... hold on a minute.

Well, it's an ambition.

No, hang on a minute, because I could have a new Ford Focus in a year...

- if I eat 570 pies a day. - Wow! Well, there you go!

That would be-so in a year's time, "James, James, your new car's here!"

"I can't get up! I don't feel so well."

Pies are not a good way to buy cars, just in case you were wondering.

Now, you ready for this? The Americans have announced their "Green" car of the

- year. - Oh good, it'll be a Toyota Prius. - It isn't.

- Electric thing? - It's a Prius Toyota. - No.

- It's going to be a Prius. - No it isn't,

- I've got a photograph of it here, there you go. - That's not a Prius!

- No, that's a 6-litre V8 Chevy Tahoe. - That's a green car?

I'm absolutely not joking, uh, no it's a hybrid they put a tiny weeny little

electric motor in it somewhere, there you are, that's a hybrid.

And they've fallen for it. Does 21 miles to the gallon.

- That's green. - It is very green. Actually,

the funniest thing is the judges for this, okay? Do you want to

hear the judges of the American green car of the year? One of them was um...

- Jay Leno. - Oh he hates cars. - Yes, apart from

his large collection of Ferraris and Porsches, he hates them.

Carroll Shelby. Oh, he really hates-yes.

No, Carroll Shelby was the man who put the 7L V8 in the AC Ace to create the Cobra and

spends his time now...?

- Supercharging Mustangs. - He does, yes, he

puts superchargers on Mustangs. And the other judge was um, he's called.

Jean-Michel Cousteau and he's actually Jacques Cousteau's son.

- Is he? - I'd love to have been in the-when they

were discussing it: "Shut up you goddamn Frenchy cheese eating surrender monkey!"

Poor bloke when he walked in that room... "This is going to be very exciting,

I'm a judge" and they were there drinking petrol and supercharging their chair.

And Shelby'd be going: "I don't know what a hybrid is it's like Country and Western?"

- Um... ooh now, you've got one. - You know the.

- Ford Ka? It's been around for 11 years. - Yeah.

- Has it? - Yeah. - Really 11 years old?

It has and they've decided to mark that anniversary with a special limited edition,

and here it is. It's uh, it's called the "Two-Tone"

and obviously it is two-tone. You can have... that's Blazer Blue or you can have.

Panther Black, teamed with Moonstone Silver bumpers there.

But I think I know where they got that idea from. It's actually an earlier Ford,

here it is, there you see?

No, because that's, that's I know, because the bodywork is "Dagenham Hospital White",

and then that's Burnt Freesia Door there, and this back door I think is from the.

"Autumn Mist" collection.

- That's an exciting special edition. - Now there's a survey from Toyota out this

week, okay? And they say 72% of Europeans rate health and well-being as being

important in a car. Well now, that means what they're saying

- is 28% of Europeans like a car to make them feel ill. - That doesn't seem.

"Oh I love my mondeo because every time I start the engine it gives me scurvy, and

that's a good thing in my life!"

- "I chose Porsche because it brings on rectal prolapse..." - And I like it!

Anyway, Toyota have come up with a car, okay? They're calling it a "Healthy Living.

Car", and it's designed to make you feel good, and here it is: - Oh God.

I wouldn't feel good in that, I'd feel like a prat.

- To be honest. - What do you do, pedal it? - No, no, no, it's

got a normal engine but they say, okay, the steering wheel changes

colour depending on what mood you're in. So if you get angry it goes red.

How does the steering wheel know when you're angry?

Why do you want the steering wheel to tell you're angry? You already know that

because you're frothing-

- You're cross! - But it's quite a thing, you know

when you say to women "What's wrong?" and they go nothing? Well there is because the

steering wheel...

Now uh, this here is the Honda FCX Clarity, alright? Now, this has

ready? Collision mitigation braking.

- Brakes? - Yes. But actually analyse what

collision mitigating, uh, mitigating braking system means it doesn't mean

brakes. However, this is one of the most important cars ever launched, it's

actually got a hydrogen fuel cell, so the only thing that comes out of the back of

that, all that comes out is water. H2O. That's it. It's completely zero emissions.

- Really astonishing. - Hydrogen fuel cells are actually extremely clever, much

better than batteries because the uh, the fuel cell stack in that develops a

- hundred kilowatts. - It is and that's well, that would be

- enough for a house? - Yeah. Well it would be a hundred

electric fires but in my house, I mean even if you put lots of stuff on,

like the immersion heater, the cooker, the telly, the central heating-

Your electric curlers.

- My gramophone. - And the giant flashing illuminated neon

- picture of Freddie Mercury. - All of that.

- So that would add up to what? - Well, no more than 10.

No, exactly. And the point of this car is that not only is it a proper

car, drives around like a normal car, but if you could plug that into your

- house, well it would actually power a whole street. - Easily.

- And only produce water. - The only real problem is that

well the only thing that we haven't got yet is a hydrogen filling station.

And the other thing of course is that hy-storing hydrogen is tricky, but

they're working on ways to make it

so you can store it on bits of metal and actually that brings me onto something.

Children, if you're watching, um, school tomorrow. If you've got a

science lesson and the teacher says "Today we're going to do storage of

hydrogen", pay attention because whoever

works that out is going to be the richest person

- the world has ever seen. Because. - Ever.

Honestly when as soon as they get the infrastructure worked out, that's just it.

Yep, so if you're watching this in Saudi Arabia...

- Time to break out your camel. - It's back to carpets for you.

Right, that's the end of the news, uh, so let's move it on.

Um, you see every week we get a stack of letters.

And literally none of them ever asks,

"What was the first car ever to be laid out,

"in a way that we accept as being normal now?"

Good! So, moving on...

No, no, no, no, actually it's a very good question

that's never been asked because...

You know, we have the steering wheel in front of you.

You have the clutch on the left, the brake in the middle,

the throttle pedal on the right.

You got the gear stick there and a hand brake down there.

- But what was the first car to be like that? - Oh.

No, no, honestly, James and I decided,

good idea to go down to the Beaulieu Motor Museum.

And see if we could find the answer to a question that no one is asking.

Because no one cares.

This is the very first car ever made,

the Benz Patent Motorwagen from 1896.

This is genesis.

And it's absolutely nothing like the cars we know today.

For a start, it has this tiller steering arrangement,

which is exactly the sort of thing you'd find on a canal boat.

And it also only has a single front wheel

so presumably if you're a bit too vigorous with this,

the whole thing could topple over.

Performance... Not great.

It has a one cylinder, one litre engine

which gives a top speed of nine.

And with a 1.5 litre fuel tank,

its range is only five miles.

Tricky when the petrol station hadn't been invented,

but it did show the world that personal motorised transportation was possible.

Three years later, the British came up

with this, the Royal Enfield.

That's not the brake!

No!

Its controls were hideously complicated,

but there were some good points.

This had

twice the power of the Benz, two horsepower,

but most important of all, it had

four wheels.

So what they'd accidentally designed here is the Quad bike.

One of the biggest problems with these early cars is

getting them going in the first place.

The starter motor hasn't been invited yet.

There's no ignition key. You have to use

the starting handle.

And the great thing about this particular car, the De Dion Bouton,

uh, is that when you turn the handle, it will break your wrist.

- You what? - Seven members of staff

at the motor museum have had their wrists broken by

this very car.

Well, we don't actually need to drive it.

- We could just stand around and talk about it. - No, no, no, no.

This is one of the very first cars that sold in great numbers.

We have to know what it was like.

You're gonna have to get it going.

Having got it started, we needed to get it moving

and for that, we had a copy of the original handbook,

which had been translated from French, because the car

was made in France, into English.

Literally.

"For making the carriage walking at the first speed,

"take back the drag of the wheel backward crowbar of the right

"and take completely and progressively back,

"the crowbar of embrayage to you..."

"...hurl the mover till his starting."

I can understand why this is better than going around looking at a horse's bottom.

But how did anyone ever figure out how it worked?

- If we've established that that's the gear lever... - Yeah.

- ...that's the advance thing, the ignition. - Yeah.

That's something important.

This was designed for someone with three arms and one leg.

- It was. - If you need to do a hill start,

- you have to steer it with your chest. - Or your face.

It would be difficult. How do I get it into top gear?

"For taking the second speed

"push rapidly up the crowbar forward without brutality.

"When it is raised up again, it gains all its strength."

- Yes! Good. - Yes!

- Top gear! - Now, how do I stop?

- What? - Well, I need to... I'm going to have to stop eventually.

This road won't go on forever.

- "Hurl the..." No. - Seriously.

- I don't know, James. I don't know. - Find it.

- You're in charge of the instructions. - They're in gibberish.

There's no point in relying on this.

Try and work it out. Embrayage, crowbar.

I brought them as a joke for the viewer.

Oh, God, there's a...

"For making the carriage completely stopped,

"when it goes at 15 kilometres an hour,

"take abruptly the crowbar

- "of embrayage..." - Right.

No, no, wait, wait I haven't finished.

Well, you haven't got very long! Come on.

"When you are in first speed,

"push..." We aren't, are we?

James, we're going to be killed!

I decided to use ingenuity.

I'm causing friction.

That's neutral. I've got neutral.

It's my wind resistance. Stop it!

- I don't know how to do it. - Make it stop.

I don't...

Right.

So France hadn't got it right, and nor had America.

This is the Stevens Derailleur, which has eight clutches.

And what kind of dullard would think that that was brilliant?

- That's brilliant! - What's brilliant?

This gearbox. This is a three-speed constant mesh,

- so those are constant mesh gears. - Yep.

- And it has selector forks. - Yep.

But it doesn't have dog clutches.

- So that's like the brake band on an automatic gearbox. - Yeah.

In a modern gearbox, one would always be loose on its shaft,

either the input shaft or the lay shaft.

That's 1903, and that is basically what...

You might imagine that the first car

to get everything in the right order

was the first car ever to be mass produced.

The Model T Ford.

By the time it went out of production in 1927,

half the cars in the world were Model Ts.

So you'd imagine that all the cars that came along afterwards

would be laid out in the same way.

Luckily, they weren't.

Honestly, I am glad this didn't catch on, because

driving a Model T is more complicated

than doing eye surgery.

It is almost as though Henry Ford was being...

I don't know, deliberately obtuse because

to make it move,

you have to up the revs with the accelerator,

which is here on the steering wheel. There.

Then you move the handbrake to the middle

which somehow puts the car in neutral,

and then depress the left pedal...

Yeah.

The only problem is, to maintain this speed

I have to keep my foot pressed hard down on what feels like

a very, very heavy clutch pedal,

and the pain in my thigh is excruciating!

The only way around this is to change into top gear.

Now to do that we have to go faster,

push this lever, the handbrake that isn't a handbrake,

all the way down,

then I can take my foot off that pedal.

Now the speed shoots up,

whether you like it or not, to about 40,

and 40 on wooden wheels in a world with hardly any roads

is terrifying.

Jeremy and I were beginning to believe we'd never find

the first car with what we'd now call conventional controls.

But then we stumbled on this.

The Cadillac Type 53 from 1916.

Look! A handbrake and a gear lever in the middle of the car,

and three pedals in the right order.

And better still, no starting handle, no broken wrists.

This was the first car to come with one of these.

This may look as old fashioned

as all the other nonsense from the early days of motoring.

But what we have here is the nub,

the first properly modern car.

The thing is,

that nobody knew when this came along.

That they had actually hit on what would become the template

for all cars in the future.

Exactly. This bright idea could easily have been snuffed out

by the next bright idea.

No, but what made this bright idea stick

was that a British chap called Herbert Austin,

who I'm sure you know, came along,

copied all the ideas and put them on his car for the people,

which was, of course...

- The Seven. - The Seven. Exactly.

This car cost just a £125, four times less than the Cadillac.

What's more, it was built under licence by BMW in Germany,

and copied too by Datsun in Japan.

This car, then, the little Austin Seven,

took Cadillac's bright idea, showed it to the world,

and made it stick.

Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Goffey and Tony Mason there.

No, no, thanks. Really, thanks, lads, for wasting nine minutes of my life.

No, no, I'll tell you something else really interesting.

Not with a kitchen knife sticking through your neck, you won't.

- No, seriously. During the war...

Oh, God, no, not James May on the war!

Please. Isn't it time you put a star in our reasonably priced car?

It is time we put a star in the reasonably priced car.

My guest tonight once sang about a semi by the sea.

And funnily enough, James May once had a similar experience

when a dreadnought sailed by.

Anyway... Ladies and gentlemen, James Blunt!

Yes!

- How are you? - I'm very well.

You've taken two years to get here. Have a seat.

Excellent.

I'm honoured that you should come down, and thank you for that.

- Well, thanks, it's been a nice day out. - Good.

Good. Um, because you're the first guest we've ever had who can drive a tank.

Yeah. I think you'll see in a minute I can't drive a car, though.

Yes, but you see,

your problem is, is your car history is rubbish.

I mean, we have sometimes had guests on who have just had appalling car histories,

but yours, I think you've only owned, is it one car?

I'm afraid to say on this programme

of all programmes, I owned

a Lada Riva.

And, uh, I haven't finished, actually.

It was a Lada Riva SL1300, SL's for "Slightly luxurious".

Yeah. And it was racing red, or Ferrari red. Whichever you guys choose.

They weren't bad cars, those Lada Rivas.

Yeah, I mean, actually it did have bucket seats,

and I installed an enormous great stereo in it,

which sadly was nicked one day.

Which I think is actually probably even more embarrassing

than owning a Lada, is to nick the stereo.

And why have you never replaced it with another car?

Presumably you can afford one now.

Because I owned a motorbike after that, Jeremy.

- Oh, did you? - Yeah, a Moto Guzzi.

- I didn't know you were homosexual. - Yes, absolutely.

Most of my songs are about you!

Oh, God, no.

I've got all kinds of lyrics going through my head now.

Which bit of the army were you in?

I was in the Life Guards, which was part of the Household Cavalry

so reconnaissance, and that's why we had very small tanks.

Were they, like, diet tanks?

Yeah. A Scimitar, a main battle tank is about 77 tonnes,

and mine was about four tonnes.

Did you see

in the paper on Wednesday, they're talking about,

now the EU is saying that there's got to be

emissions legislation for military vehicles.

- Did you see that? - I have heard about this, yeah, we've...

- But, is it... - We are going green in the army.

How can you worry about what the pipe at the back, when the pipe at the

front has depleted

uranium coming out of that one.

"Yeah, I know, but look..."

We're just trying to make war a little bit safer, I think.

Yes.

Um, it's a good job really you aren't in the army now, I have to say that.

Yeah. It's a pretty miserable time, I think, to be in the army.

They're working incredibly hard,

doing a really tough job, and not under great circumstances.

No, I mean... Yes, 'cause, you know,

the covenant is supposed to exist between

us and them.

- Yeah. - They all say it's gone.

'Cause I was talking to one the other day,

a chap called Mark who's had his leg blown off in Iraq,

and he came back and all we gave him was MRSA.

Yeah.

You know, ' cause I don't really think that's really fair.

No, I know you're a patron for Help For Heroes.

- Yeah, I know you are too. - I do the same thing and it's really just because

there aren't many funds for the army, and, uh,

and particularly for equipment,

but more so, even more important for those who get

injured and maimed when they come back.

Now, you were in the army skiing team? So that's Cavalry skiing team?

Yes, so they sent me skiing for about three months every single year.

It's not all, fun, fun, fun.

It's hard work.

Didn't they name a chairlift after you?

I had a chairlift named after me, yeah.

- Because you spent so much time? - I had to crack a bottle

of champagne on it and say "I name this chairlift James Blunt.

"God bless her and all who ride me."

But, you did actually have to go to Kosovo, didn't you? It wasn't all...

Yeah, in '99, during the war there, the bombing campaign

and the peacekeeping afterwards.

Was it very horrible?

Yeah, war's a pretty miserable place, actually,

and so was the Albanians uh, the Kosovan Albanians and the Serbs

- murdering each other. - 'Cause you were the... Weren't you the first in?

Um, across the border, yeah. And the first one to Pristina with my troop of soldiers.

- Really? - Yeah.

The very first one in. That's quite something.

And you had your guitar on your tank?

I had my guitar strapped to the outside.

It was a precious guitar I wanted it on the inside.

But I was told by my superiors I had to keep the soldiers on the inside.

Wasn't allowed to strap them on the outside.

And you just made sweet music in there.

Um, do you inhale helium before you sing

or is that just how it comes out?

I was fed it as a child.

- Fed helium. - Yes.

I think actually if I sang and inhaled helium

it would be beyond the human ear's register, wouldn't it?

Only, only dogs would hear it.

Oh, oh, make it stop.

'Cause you do actually take the mick out of your own songs

- at gigs, don't you? - Well, have you heard them?

Now, let's just get this. I'm confused by this.

Genuinely, okay? Your first album sold 12 million.

Something like that. Although my mother bought about a million of those.

So, I did have a helping hand.

- And I've got a million. - We have a warehouse

about the size of this. Full of my albums.

And then the new one, All the Lost Souls.

That is... Well, that is flying out, isn't it?

So, why are you voted number four

in the list of the 100 most irritating things in Britain?

That really pisses me off actually.

- I thought I'd at least do better than that. - Exactly!

You did beat traffic wardens,

and you beat men in flip-flops.

Well, I tell you, next year!

I'm going for the number one or two spot.

Climb it up.

Um, you have packed a lot into your life.

Obviously there's the army stuff.

You had a pilot licence at 16.

- Do you still fly? - I'm normally just at the back of the plane.

If you found yourself in a plane with me, you should jump out!

Why did you go and learn to fly?

- My dad's a helicopter pilot in the Army Air Corps. - Oh, is he?

What did he fly? Lynxes?

Yeah, Lynx, and Gazelle Scout before that.

Which they're still flying now out in Iraq.

Yeah, exactly. In fact, my brother-in-law who is here tonight

has got a Scout as well.

- He's got one, or he flies one? - No, he's got a Scout.

He flies one and he's got one.

I found him on eBay.

What? You found your brother-in-law on eBay?

Or the Scout on eBay?

No, no, what happened was

I found my sister, who again is here tonight,

uh, crying in a flat because she couldn't get to a funeral

in southern Ireland,

um, because the planes were on strike, and the ferries were out of season.

Uh, obviously no trains to Cork in southern Ireland. So I put my sister on eBay as.

"A damsel in distress needs a knight in shining armour. What can you do?"

And this fool started bidding, amongst others, and...

You put your sister on eBay?

Yeah. And in a way they... He bid and bid amongst others

and he won and he had a helicopter, a Scout, so he could fly her to the funeral.

And, uh, some six months ago they got married.

- No way. - Yeah.

You put your sister on eBay and now she's married?

And I've a second sister who will be online shortly.

Starting price £5.

This is what they do in Thailand, isn't it?

That's fantastic. And then slightly portly men in Barnsley buy them.

Yes, you must have met him!

Right. Now, come on, um, your lap, how was it?

It was great fun. I don't think I damaged the car too much.

- Were you frightened? - No, I really enjoyed it.

'Cause you like speed. I mean, bearing in mind

there's the bikes and the skiing and all those.

No, really. I enjoyed going fast in it. It was a great fun day.

Really had fun. The Stig is great.

Uh, okay, now who'd like to see the lap?

Yes! Okay, let's play the tape. Here we go.

Good bit of axel tramp there, or whatever it is in a front-wheel drive car.

Come on, you little!

Enthusiastic.

Up to the one hundreds. Here's the yellow marker!

What yellow marker? You're seeing things!

That's good. That's very good, very neat.

And very neat again!

Looking worried.

Were you worried?

He's very worried!

Are you all right in there?

Oh, my God!

That's absolutely terrifying!

Did you look like that in the tank?

No wonder you were first in. Here we go now.

At the 50. No surrender!

Right.

Good, that's very nice.

There's a huge great jet over there.

No! Concentrate on the track, man, not the scenery!

Now, here we go. That was very quick through there, second to last corner,

are we gonna get around that properly? Yes, cutting in nicely into Gambon...

Here we go... What?

Nicely held! Very good, and there we are across the line!

Yeah.

Here are the peeps who have been round so far in the Lacetti.

Any idea where you think you might have come?

Bearing in mind it was jolly wet out there.

The only wet ones we have had, which are the ones to matter,

are Jamie Oliver is wet, and Philip Glennister did a wet one.

Well, yeah, close to Jamie, if I'm lucky.

Okay. Well, there you are. So you did it in

one minute...

...48.3 seconds.

Ladies and gentlemen, a quick time! I'll put a wet on it.

A wet...

There he is, 48.3 there.

Are you pleased with that? I mean, you should be. 'Cause that's a wet lap.

Yeah, just above Billie Piper.

- Who wouldn't want to be there? - Yes!

It's been an absolute pleasure having you here.

- Thank you. - Super star. And I do like Back To Bedlam.

And I like the new album as well. So thanks very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, James Blunt!

Thank you.

And that was a good time!

Now, it's fair to say that I'm not exactly a Formula 1 motor racing fan.

I was sitting in the office the other day wondering aloud

why they're all paid so much just for sitting down behind a steering wheel.

I may even have said out loud, "How hard can it be?"

So someone decided it might be a good idea

for me to go and find out.

This is the Renault R25.

As the car that won Fernando Alonso a world championship.

It's one of the all time F1 greats.

The R25 is also the last of the breed from the monstrous V10 era,

when the cars were chucking out close to a 1,000 horsepower.

Now, there's going to be no Top Gear nonsense today.

I'm not going to race it against a cheetah or a bat on a superbike.

My mission is simply to get that

round a track.

Specifically, two laps around Stowe Circuit at Silverstone.

More specifically, two laps without stuffing a priceless.

World Championship winning F1 car.

Now, to put all this into context,

the fastest road car I've ever driven is the Bugatti Veyron,

which has a power to weight ratio of 530 horsepower per tonne.

But the power to weight ratio of this

is 1,500 horsepower per tonne.

But it's not just the numbers.

Nothing can prepare your mind, your senses,

your body, your reaction times for the assault of a Formula 1 car.

So, before the assault, it was back to school.

My teacher would be race team boss Jonathan Lewis,

and my first lesson would be in one of his little formula Renault cars.

It's very simple, really.

But, it looks like a Formula 1 car to me, only a bit smaller and not quite as fiddly.

Okay. Well, it is. It is a baby Formula car.

As a Veyron veteran, I was keen to show him what I could do!

Still, the Formula Renault only has a piddly two-litre engine from a Clio.

So mastering it should be easy.

Right. I'm going to try and gas it a bit down the straight.

I've never let a complete novice go out in one of our cars before.

The Formula Renault has only one fifth the power of an F1 car,

and I now realised the size of the mountain I had to climb.

First time I've ever experienced what proper brakes are.

It just hits a wall!

And just as I was getting used to this car,

I was shoved into its bigger brother,

a World Series car with twice the power of the Formula Renault.

Mother of God!

He's gone quiet.

And no wonder! The straight-line speed I could cope with.

But in the corners, I just couldn't think fast enough to react.

So quick!

Come on, Hammond, just trust it.

It's just so... There's so much to learn.

I can't drive fast enough to get the heat in the brakes and then there's no brakes.

I've just grappled with what,

500 brake horsepower in a 500 kilo car. I'm halfway there.

I was summoned to look at the readouts from my onboard telemetry.

You're riding the brake

and you're riding the accelerator believe it or not.

- 'Cause I'm doing left-foot braking. - Yeah.

And then the other thing is that you're being quite severe

on one of the downshifts. And you actually put eight and a half on the motor.

If I'd done what I did on that lap

in a Formula 1 car, what would have happened?

You'd have probably spun it and wrecked the engine.

What's an engine rebuild on a Formula 1 car?

Probably about 150,000, 200,000 or more.

I needed lots more time in the World Series car,

but that wasn't going to happen.

Because my muscles were struggling to cope with the cornering forces.

My head is going to come off, and I'm not joking.

His neck will go soon, so he needs to drive the Formula 1.

Before I moved on, Yoda gave me a pep talk.

Everything you experienced in the World Series car is probably going to be

more than three times as much, maybe more, in the Formula 1.

I was... My thinking time, that was my problem.

You know, I had a bit of an off, it's because I thought I'd left it too late to brake,

then I realised I hadn't,

but because I was thinking that, the car was already round the corner.

- Yeah. - And I was in the wrong gear in a span.

- Yeah. - I can't think fast enough, more than anything else.

You're gonna have to really concentrate, Richard, especially with that thing.

If you think that's hard, that's going to be another level.

My fear wasn't just about the speed.

It was about what I was going to be entrusted with.

The more time you spend hanging around with one of these things,

the more otherworldly it becomes.

I mean, let's talk about the money,

because we can all understand that, right?

The engine, £170,000.

The gearbox casing, with no gears in it, £60,000.

The wing, £20,000.

But those are all the big bits.

It's still off this planet when you get to

the little bits and pieces, you've got on your car at home.

So the wheel nut, there it is. 500 quid.

And then for the socket to remove it, £1,000.

And look, the mirror. It's just that, just that little thing. 800 quid.

And the steering wheel, £30,000.

And it isn't just the money, either.

This thing is not just expensive,

it's quite incredibly fragile and highly strung.

So the engine, the tolerances in here are so fine that

when it's cold it's effectively seized solid.

You can't start it cold. It has to be heated up.

And they do that by constantly pumping

warm water round it when it's in the pits, at 80 degrees.

You can't put cold oil in, either.

It has to be warm and fed intravenously.

It's like it's on a life-support machine.

That's snug.

If you're ten, I'm doing this on your behalf. You're in here with me.

So now I've got control of the throttle.

That's me. Dear God, that's me revving a Formula 1 engine.

The eyes of the whole F1 team were upon me.

This was it.

Revs.

It had taken me a minute to do 40 feet.

Why are we going? Are we going all the way back in? Is it all off?

Here's the problem with this stalling.

I know it's very funny and everything, but the car has a system.

Because if you stall in F1 it's a disaster,

so as you're setting off,

if it thinks you haven't got enough power it just cuts the clutch in again,

and you just look an idiot.

- Eight. - Eight anti-stalls?

That's a record, then, innit?

After the team had laughed at me and warmed

the tyres to make them more grippy,

they sent me on my way.

Oh, God. It feels totally different to the other car. Totally different.

Turning left. My God, I'm in a Formula 1 car.

I'm going to try the throttle and see...

Oh, my God! Oh, my God!

Holy Mother!

There's no temperature in the brakes.

In the half a lap I'd managed, the car had made a big impression.

It's absolutely the most glorious machine in the world.

Wait till you get into second.

I'm going as fast as I feel I can,

and it's not fast enough to keep heating the tyres,

which means I've got no grip, let alone no downforce.

If I go a bit faster than that,

that means there'll still be no heat in the tyres and no downforce,

and I'm going even faster and I will crash.

The only way from where I am now is a lot faster.

Then I'll have heat in the tyres and grip, and I won't crash.

And to make things worse, the man with my telemetry was hardly a bag of laughs.

There's a big gap between when you're lifting off and braking.

So you should be coming straight off the accelerator

and going straight onto the brakes. Straight away.

- All right. - There's no need to have that big gap.

When you say a big gap, how big a gap is it?

- Half a second, between you lifting off... - It's not massive, is it?

Before you go on the brakes. It should be straight away.

He was right, though. If I was going to do two laps in this thing, I had to dig deep.

I've got to think about everything I've learned.

Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!

That's unbelievable.

There's so much. It's... It's just going mental!

There's no temperature in the brakes, they feel like they're not working.

Oh, this is... like a dream.

I'd done a lap. Just one more.

Turning in. Oh, it's beautiful!

I suspect the chief mechanic had seen better,

but as far as I was concerned, driving God!

And the most scary thing in the whole world!

The last corner is coming up!

I'm braking. We're turning left, I'm in second.

I'm going to nail it to the line.

God, I've done it!

I've done it! I've done it!

To mark the occasion, the technicians let the engine play its party piece.

Yes!

I did it!

Yeah.

- James. - Oh, yeah.

I happen to know... No, no, really, I happen to know

that after a while when you'd been in the Formula 1 car,

they had to pull it in to reheat the tyres,

because he was driving so slowly they were cooling down.

That did happen, but I experienced full throttle in a Formula 1 car.

- Give him his due, he did use full throttle... - Yeah.

...for 0.2 seconds.

Uh... Anyway, it's now time to meet another guest,

and this one can drive a Formula 1 car, even though he's only eight years old.

Ladies and gentlemen, Lewis Hamilton!

Yes! Hey, how are you?

- Good to see you. - Great to see you. Have a seat.

- He's here. He has come among us.

This is what I think you can call a friendly audience.

It is. Thank you very much for the warm welcome.

- You don't have to worry... - But it is cold in here though.

- It is cold in here. - I'm surprised.

I know you guys make a lot of money. Couldn't you afford a heater or something?

No. Because we have all the money.

Anyway, I want to start really by offering, I guess all of us will do the same,

- big congratulations for an astonishing first year. - Thank you.

- Thank you very much. - I have to start with that.

Because that's genuinely amazing.

- Are you as amazed as we all are I suppose? - I am, absolutely.

Because, who would have thought? I'm just your average guy.

I just got an amazing opportunity to come to Formula 1,

and I managed to just lose the championship right at the end.

But still, it was an amazing year.

So when you arrived in Formula 1, the beginning,

- it was Australia, wasn't it, the first race? - Yeah.

- Are you expected to behave like a new boy? You know... - Yeah, I think so.

I think for sure, everyone expects,

"This is a new kid, he doesn't know what he's doing,

"and, you know, he's going to be a breeze to pass."

- That wasn't the case. - Well, it wasn't.

Because the first race, you overtook Eyebrow Man.

Alonso.

And the second one, you put one on Massa, didn't you? The second race?

I think it was... Massa and Kimi.

- Was Kimi drunk? - I don't know. I should have asked him actually.

Because he was, he was really on the left, this was Malaysia.

And he was just on the left and probably

didn't imagine I would out-brake him up the inside. But...

- Singing Sham 69 songs. - Yeah.

♪ We're going down the pub ♪

- Hurry up, Harry. Come on, oi, oi!

"Who was that?"

"That's that new boy that's gone past."

Um... We've just been watching Richard Hammond

making a complete clot of himself in a Formula 1 car.

Are these things hard to drive?

They are. They're very, very hard.

When you're at high speed, when you're doing 150, 180 miles an hour,

and you're through a corner and you hit a bump,

you try to correct it and the thing will shoot you off, so...

Are you fearless? 'Cause you've already said,

"If you're going to die on a track, so be it,"

kind of attitude.

Well, I don't think...

Well, I'm not looking to waste my life, but you know,

I've never had the problem of being scared, you know.

You never, ever think, "What if a wheel comes off now?"

- No, I've had that problem this year a couple of times. - Well, quite!

It is actually quite exciting when you're flying, you know, headfirst into a barrier.

The initial part. The initial part is actually quite...

No, it is. Especially when you hit the gravel trap

and you get some air as well, you know, it's pretty cool.

But then you see it coming and you're like, "It's going to hurt."

You do actually at the moment think it's going to hurt?

I had a really good one this year at the beginning of the season. And this car,

the team had worked very hard to get two brand-new cars out, for the first test.

And I shunted it at 180mph backwards into a wall.

And I remember going over the gravel backwards, thinking,

"Okay, this is gonna..." and just bracing myself,

and I put my head back and it was actually quite a nice shunt. It was...

Why don't you just watch Die Hard 4? That's exciting.

So, who do you want to be your teammate next year? I mean somebody useless, presumably.

- You want a job? - No, I can't fit in.

It'd be embarrassing. That first race,

you'd be like, "Oh, the fat bloke's gonna be useless,"

and it would be just the same, history would repeat, I'd come flying past you.

- Yeah. - Screaming.

But do you want someone... Everybody presumably wants somebody crap?

No. Honestly, having someone this year that could push me all the way was wicked.

- You know, and I learned so much from... - Fernando?

- He's a bloody good driver, I tell you. - Yeah? I could have him.

I did once, on the Oxford ring road.

Honestly, he was doing, like, 80. I came past, about 85.

No, 65... I was doing 70.

That hasn't worked, has it? No.

With your driving now... Your dad's been very much a part of the

build-up of your whole career, I mean, he's here now.

Does he still tell you how to drive, like all dads do, if you're driving along with him?

Yeah, if we're on the road, something like that, you know,

he truly believes he's a better driver than me,

and that if he had been given the opportunity, he would be in Formula 1 right now.

So what have you got, a Mercedes? Have you got one of those CLs?

No. You know what, I drive a GL500.

- Sorry, a GL420. - Why didn't you get the 5? What?

It's a diesel.

- It's... It's a pimp wagon, you know. - It's the fuel of Satan, man!

You can fit 24-inch rims on it, and just lean back and drive, man.

That's all you need on the road.

What are you saying about yourself?

Now, there's one thing that we've noticed. Martin Brundle...

We've noticed that every time you don't do so well in a race Brundle has talked to you.

- Talked to me. Yeah. - Have you noticed that?

- I have. - I think he's bitter.

- Yeah. - I think he's undoing things on your car.

I believe that's what's going on. Hit him.

No. I mean...

Who'd win a fist fight, of all the British drivers?

Well, I used to do boxing. I used to do karate as well, so...

- Oh, you're a black belt, aren't you? - Yeah.

I'm more into defending myself, so...

You wouldn't want to hit Coulthard, with that...

You'd break your wrist. Probably break your hand, wouldn't you?

- And I know Jenson doesn't like to... - And there's stubble, as well.

And... Oh, you know when you look at a Formula 1 car,

obviously every gram that you can save, you save.

- I mean, there is just no excess fat on it. - Yeah.

How come Jenson Button's allowed to have a beard?

No, but seriously, 'cause that's got to weigh...

All the effort the designer makes and then he turns up with that face fungus.

I'd tell him to have a... Well, you haven't started shaving yet,

so you won't know.

- I've got a little bit growing. - Really?

Have you got pubes yet?

It happens. No honestly. No, I wanna say, they grow. It's ugly.

Um, anyway, obviously, we now have to arrive at this point.

Yeah.

These are the Formula 1 people who have been here before.

Obviously, The Stig heads the board, with 1.44.4.

Mansell, Jenson Button, "Dill".

And then Mark Webber.

Now Mark Webber was the only one who came here when it was wet,

and I believe it's wet out there.

It's very slippery out there, and you said someone came along and

put some oil on the track. Was it, was it Mark?

Well, seriously, earlier today we had the Vauxhall VXR8

- going round, which is Australian. - Yeah.

And the only person you're really racing is Mark Webber, who is Australian.

Now, I'm not suggesting he came down and undid the diff on the Vauxhall,

but it was spewing oil all over the track, so you've got oil and water out there.

So, really, wet, that's the time you're aiming for, is 1.47.1

I'm actually a bit nervous about this, 'cause

I had some fun out there actually.

But I'm not here to compete. Let's see what goes on.

- Yeah, right! - Honestly, I'm here to have fun.

- Who'd like to see the lap? - Yeah!

Play the tape. Here we go.

Oh, that's an aggressive start.

Wheel spin into second gear.

Come on. Let's get going.

Now, let's have a look. Were you using The Stig's line or...

No, that's where The Stig says it should go. All the other F1 drivers

do it different and go out wide.

That wasn't too bad. I'd give it eight out of ten.

- Right, now, into Chicago. - Oh, a bit sideways.

You're getting sideways on the way in, that was very nice, and super-tight round there.

- Now, what are you... - Come on, man!

Fifty six miles an hour. What the...

Fifty six is quick. Now, this is where everyone gets, oh...

Looks quite slow and tidy through there.

I was expecting more flamboyance. Now, here we go.

Look at the grip, this thing will put Formula 1 cars to shame.

It won't. It won't, it won't, it won't.

There we are across... Ooh, you've gone for the slippery inside bit there. And...

Are you taking this seriously?

I've never seen anyone so lackadaisical about...

Whoa, that was lackadaisical but sideways.

Coming up to Gambon now, and that's pretty, pretty flamboyant.

And there we are!

Across the line.

So...

- Quicker or slower? - What do you think?

- Quicker! - Mark's a quick guy.

Okay, you did it...

Not competitive!

One minute...

And bearing in mind this is on a track covered in water and oil.

- 44.7. - No!

Unbelievable. There.

And that's wet and oily. How did you do that?

Seriously, I have to know.

I have to know, because everybody out there, including,

I have to say, even The Stig,

has to know, how did you do that?

- I don't know. - Because...

- No, because he's done a 44.4... - That's my time.

And, let's be honest, he knows this place like the back of his...

He hasn't got hands, but you know what I mean.

He knows this place extremely well, okay?

You come down on a wet, oily track and do a 44.7.

And you weren't even... We saw you, whoo-whoo-whoo, singing.

- The car's good, you know. - The car's crap, man! You know that.

Do you think you could go faster than that?

Are you going to invite me back to do it on a dry day?

I would absolutely love it if you'd come. Everybody would.

- I'd love to. - It's just been such a pleasure.

I'm rooting for you next year. I dare say everybody here is gonna be rooting for you.

Ladies and gentlemen, Lewis Hamilton!

Amazing.

Amazing. Astonishing.

And that, sadly, is all we've got time for. We have to end the show. Good night.

- No, no, no, there's more on car controls. - Oh, God.

No, honestly, okay? Earlier on, we looked at the past and

now it's time to look at the future.

- Really? - No, because,

BMW called us up and they said they've built a car

that doesn't need any controls at all.

- So how does it work? - Well, they say they'd bring it to our track

and then they'd show it round, and then it would use really clever satnav

to work out where it was, so it could remember all the corners.

- Really? - Yeah, exactly.

Really. I mean, I had to go and have a look.

This is the most important car ever

in the whole of automotive history. Probably.

It's a four-door BMW 330 Saloon and what I'm going to do now

is take it for a spin.

BMW say that because this car has now learned our track,

it can actually do a full-bore, smoking, pedal-to-the metal lap.

The only thing is, they say, "Look, if you're going to do that,

"would you mind sitting behind the wheel

"just in case something goes wrong?"

Hmm. In case something goes wrong...

I can't believe I'm going to do this. I can't believe it.

Right.

My foot is on the brake.

I'm now going to push this little button on the steering wheel here,

and it will set off at, um, race speed.

Here we go.

Now... Now, you see, that's uncanny.

It's revving up to 7,000rpm, changing gear.

It's turned right. It's coming to the first corner. Brake, please. Brake, brake, brake!

Brake! Brake!

It... It is! And I can't believe this!

Coming up to the tyres at 100kph, that's 62, as we brake to turn into Chicago.

As we steam towards the Hammerhead now,

100mph, and it's gonna go hard on the brakes.

It has! There it is. I'm not doing that. My foot is still nowhere near the pedals.

It's turning in.

Imagine if the British had built this.

Ah, well, we didn't get it quite right, that's what happened there.

We just missed that little bit out there.

Is it going to lift for the follow-through? We're now up to 130kph.

140. Apparently, you can even put this on an M3

if you really want to frighten yourself.

To death!

Coming up to the tyres, here we go. 120, 130.

This is 95 miles an hour through the tyres. Bang on!

Please don't get it wrong. Please don't get it wrong. Please don't get it wrong.

And it's just changed up to fourth.

Brake, brake, brake, brake, brake! Second to last corner! Come on, brake!

Stig, you are sacked.

You are so sacked! It's unbelievable!

Now...

Now, how do I stop it? Um...

I forgot to ask the man how I stop it.

It's, um...

I'm going to be out here for the rest of my life!

How much petrol's it got in it? Three quarters of a tank.

- And er... he's still out there. - Not sure we're ever gonna get him back.

- Not sure we really wanna get him back. - But anyway, next week, the three of us

take part in our first ever motor race. And a 24 hour one at that!

- And I only get lost once! - Yeah. And I crashed. Again.

And on that bombshell, it's time to end the show.

Er, next week we're on at 9 o'clock for reasons we don't quite understand.

So, see you then.

Subtitles modified from MTOD transcript Ripped by GLUE of QxR Edited/corrected for TGCC v2 by AlexGRFan97.

I'm bored now!