Tiff Needell - Racer First, TV Second
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Car
Mclaren F1
The McLaren F1 is a very famous sports car from the 1990s that was super fast and had a unique design where the driver sits in the middle of the car. It's considered one of the greatest cars ever made and is loved by car enthusiasts. People talk about it because of its amazing performance and cool looks.
Concept
Formula 1
Formula 1, or F1, is a type of car racing that involves fast cars competing in races on special tracks. It's very popular and has many fans around the world.
Concept
IndyCar
IndyCar is a type of car racing that takes place on different types of tracks, including oval tracks. It's known for its fast cars and exciting races, often featuring teams and drivers competing for championships.
Concept
NASCAR
NASCAR is a type of car racing that features cars that look like regular cars but are specially built for racing. The races usually take place on circular tracks, and it's very popular in the U.S.
Concept
Formula One
Formula One is a top-level car racing series where very fast cars compete in races around the world. It's known for its exciting races and high-tech cars.
Concept
IMSA
IMSA is a group that runs sports car races in North America. They have different types of races and cars that compete against each other.
Concept
Formula Ford
Formula Ford is a type of car racing for beginners. It's a great way for new drivers to learn how to race without spending too much money.
Concept
Formula 3
Formula 3 is a type of racing that uses small, fast cars with open wheels. It's often where new drivers start before moving up to more advanced racing series.
Term
suspension
The suspension is what helps your car ride smoothly and stay stable on the road. It's made up of parts that connect the car to its wheels and help absorb bumps.
Concept
Formula Four
Formula Four is a type of car racing for young drivers. It helps them learn and improve their skills before moving on to more advanced racing series.
Concept
Formula Three
Formula Three is a level of racing that comes after Formula Four. It's for drivers who are getting ready to compete at even higher levels, like Formula One.
Concept
Euro Formula
Euro Formula is a racing series in Europe where young drivers race cars that look like the ones used in professional racing. It's a way for them to get noticed and improve their driving skills.
Concept
Formula Regional
Formula Regional is a type of car racing for young drivers that is a step up from Formula Four. It helps them prepare for even bigger racing competitions.
Concept
Formula 4 car
Formula 4 cars are racing cars that help new drivers learn the skills they need to compete in more advanced racing series. They are designed to be fast and safe for beginners.
Concept
Formula 2
Formula 2 is another level of racing that comes after Formula 3. It has even faster cars and is a key step for drivers who want to reach Formula 1.
Concept
grand prix driver
A grand prix driver is a professional racer who competes in important races, like those in Formula 1. They need to be very fit and mentally sharp to do well.
Concept
F3
F3 stands for Formula 3, which is a type of car racing for young drivers. It's a way for them to practice and improve before moving on to faster and more advanced racing like Formula 1.
Concept
F1
F1 stands for Formula 1, which is the top level of car racing. It features the fastest cars and the best drivers, racing on tracks all over the world.
Term
qualify
To 'qualify' in racing means to try to get a good starting position for the race. Drivers need to be fast enough to make it onto the list of cars that can race.
Term
grid
The 'grid' is where the cars line up at the start of a race. Drivers who qualify faster get to start in better positions on the grid, which can help them win the race.
Concept
Monaco Grand Prix
The Monaco Grand Prix is a famous car race that takes place in the city of Monaco. It's known for being difficult and very exciting, attracting a lot of attention from fans and celebrities.
Car
BMW Williams V10
The BMW Williams V10 is a race car from 2005 used in Formula One, which is a very fast and competitive type of car racing. It had a powerful V10 engine that made it really quick.
Car
BMW M5
The BMW M5 is a fast and powerful car that is part of the BMW 5 Series. It's designed for performance and is known for being very fun to drive.
Term
left foot braking
Left foot braking means using your left foot to press the brake pedal while your right foot presses the gas pedal. This helps drivers slow down faster while still keeping the car moving quickly.
Term
carbon brakes
Carbon brakes are special brakes made from a strong material called carbon. They work better than regular brakes, especially when the car is going really fast or when it gets hot.
Company
Williams
Williams is a well-known team in Formula One racing. They build and race cars in the F1 series and have a long history of success in the sport.
Concept
Le Mans
Le Mans is a well-known car race that lasts for 24 hours. Cars compete to see who can go the farthest in that time, and it's a big deal in the racing world.
Car
Datsun 120Y
The Datsun 120Y is a small car made by a company called Datsun, which is part of Nissan. It was known for being affordable and dependable back in the 1970s.
Concept
World Sports Car Championship
The World Sports Car Championship was a series of races for sports cars that happened over several decades. It was important for car makers to show off their fastest and most advanced cars.
Term
boost
Boost is the extra air pressure that helps an engine run more powerfully. It's often created by devices like turbochargers that force more air into the engine.
Concept
Group C
Group C was a type of racing for fast sports cars that happened mainly in the 1980s and early 1990s, featuring very advanced cars.
Car
Ferrari F40S
The Ferrari F40 is a famous supercar made in the late 1980s that is known for being very fast and having a simple design. It was one of the last cars approved by the founder of Ferrari, Enzo Ferrari, and is loved by car fans for its performance and history. It's considered one of the best supercars ever.
Car
Porsche 911
The Porsche 911 is a classic sports car that has been around for many years and is famous for its unique shape and powerful engine in the back. It's loved for being fun to drive and can be used every day, which is why people often talk about it. Many consider it one of the best sports cars ever made.
Car
Mercedes-Benz Clk Gtr
The Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR is a very rare and powerful sports car that was made for racing and looks really cool. It has a big engine and was made in limited numbers, which makes it very special and sought after by collectors. People talk about it because of its racing background and exclusivity.
Car
BMW M2
The BMW M2 is a smaller sports car that is really fun to drive and has a powerful engine. It's designed to be both exciting and practical, so you can use it every day. People like it because it offers a great driving experience in a compact size.
Car
Porsche 918 Spyder
The Porsche 918 Spyder is a super-fast car that uses both a regular engine and electric motors to go really fast while being more efficient. It's a special car that shows how technology is changing sports cars. People talk about it because it's both powerful and eco-friendly.
Car
Ford Gt
The Ford GT is a really fast and stylish sports car that is inspired by older race cars made by Ford. It's known for being powerful and fun to drive, and people talk about it because of its cool looks and racing history. It's a special car that shows what Ford can do in terms of performance.
Car
Porsche 944
The Porsche 944 is a sports car from the 1980s that is known for being fun to drive and not as expensive as other Porsches. It has a good balance and is designed to be enjoyable on the road. Some people like the Turbo version because it is even faster.
Car
Gordon T50
The Gordon Murray Automotive T.50 is a new supercar made by a famous car designer, Gordon Murray, and is known for being very light and fast. It has a special engine and a unique system that helps it move through the air better. People talk about it because it's all about the joy of driving and great engineering.
Car
Vauxhall Corsa
The Vauxhall Corsa is a small car that is easy to drive and great for everyday use. The five-door version has extra doors, making it easier for people to get in and out. It's popular because it's affordable and practical for city driving.
Car
Lotus Elise
The Lotus Elise is a small, light sports car that is really fun to drive because it handles very well. It doesn't have a lot of extra features, which makes it simple and focused on the driving experience. People like it because it's all about enjoying the ride.
Car
BMW M3
The BMW M3 is a sportier version of a regular BMW car, designed to be faster and more fun to drive. It's known for having a powerful engine and good handling, making it great for both everyday use and exciting drives. Many people love it for its mix of comfort and performance.
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Hi, I'm Sam Wars. Welcome to the car chat podcast. And with me today, I have TIFF NIDEL. What a legend. We talk about his journey through racing, top gear, fifth gear, now love cars. That awesome video of him driving in a McLaren F1, sort of state of F1, all of these sorts of things. Lots and lots of things to cover. TIFF, as ever, was awesome.
So enjoy. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the car chat podcast. I'm Sam Wars. And with me this week, I have TIFF, hello.
Good morning, afternoon, or wherever you're listening to a watching this from evening night. There's a pro right there. He's preaching to all of the audience.
TIFF, can you tell the listeners for those that maybe don't know who you are? Probably maybe some somewhere. A little bit about sort of who you are and what you do, sort of short summary.
Well, I'm most famous as the bloke that drives cars sideways on television. After 15 years on top gear and 15 years on fifth gear and about 10 years on YouTube channels.
I still want to be known as a former racing driver who made the Grand Prix green stack in 1980. He did 14 Le Mans 24 hour races and still just wants to be a racing driver and not a TV tart.
So in your mind, you are racing driver first. Only only. Only. I just do things on telly as well.
And I'm not a journalist or people think I'm a journalist. I would not write them sentence. I used to a column match on top gear magazine. And the columns in front of me were Jeremy Clarkson, Quentin Wilson and me.
And they were wordsmiths with wonderful. Jeremy Jeremy could write a column in about five minutes about a match box. And knowing that I followed them once a month for top gear magazine, the great top of the magazine of the 90s.
And about two weeks before my column, I would start worrying, what am I going to write? What am I going to do? Oh gosh. And write one sentence and have another cup of coffee and come back and edit it. And tell me about three days.
I'm terrified of following these two great words. So I hate writing. Do you still hate writing? I guess, do you have a happy writing?
Well, scripts. Yeah, I'm just dealing with a bit for drive tribe. I'm on their YouTube channel occasion as well. So I've just scripted on the couple of stores and in for them.
And again, you read magazines now in top gear, most of any magazine. And the words, the pages they write, you know, about some boring road car, which I'd say, yes, got four wheels.
It handles not that well and it's cheap, but it's got a nice steering wheel or something. And they go into great eulogies and wandering and wordsmiths. They do write lots.
It's like columns in newspapers, be honest, you know, which I'll quite often read. But, you know, I'll read the first sort of half a page with three minutes of reading. That's sort of got the gist.
And then I start scrolling out, but it's got about a five pages. And I just, I just stopped reading them. I can't believe how often I think it's a bit like podcasts. I think sometimes, you know, people go or even editing, you know, crash highlights on YouTube.
You know, if one's three minutes of watching, if one's 26 minutes, you don't know, I won't bother watching, because if you get drawn into 26 minutes, you don't want to be drawn into 26, then you know you're wasting your life watching car crashes.
Fail arm, I love fail arm, it used to be five minutes. I think the fail army videos and out of that 20, 25.
Yes, I don't want to be drawn in. So I don't play video games at all because I know I get drawn in. No, I'm going to go quick on my next step and I'll cut replaying the move.
So no less words less words shorter. I find that completely with magazines. I sort of get auto car and stop like that, just kind of feel like I should.
And then there'll be like a three page review of a car. And you're like, it's not that interesting.
Well, we're also going to do sections. It was long as a section handling interior design cost. I like those. They chunk it up.
So then you just go straight to the bit. You're an awesome on this rent now. You find a rent a lot. You know, it's the worst thing that people said,
John Smith on pole position for the former three race, you know, which I'm interested in the former three race after call it fine.
But all of them really enthusiastic. I want is a result. Yeah, then you can waffle on. But sometimes you'll read our page of, you know, someone else then took pole with five minutes of the session left.
And then Johnson, I think it's the bottom and they haven't pasted or posted the results. So I've read all this waffle. I don't want all that waffle.
Give me the results. They never want to read your waffle. I will just give us the facts. That's so true. And there was a tight. There was a period of time when pretty sure it was like this in F1.
And it's definitely been like this and football stuff. Well, they didn't show the score. Yeah, you had to have followed to know the story to know the score.
And you're like, everyone tunes in. They go, well, they need to know where I'm starting from.
Right. So, you know, websites, like every, every format or every, you know, they have a website now. And they're just so much waffle. And I'm just trying to get through the results. So, you know, it's very frustrating.
What makes sports do you follow at the moment? Well, all of them. So my mental podcast and Monday nights with with love cars on the greatest we call it.
And what I want to do is spread the world's understanding of motorsport. Yeah. Is this form of one obsession because they will watch some fictitious stupid thing called drive to survive.
Which I watch.
And they think, you know, people should zone on form of what? So if you do a headline, what's an algorithm? You know, it's gone from a Japanese rubbish.
You know, you might get, you know, millions of hundreds of thousands of you. So, you know, if you sort of say, Mark, Mark is one another motor GP group. You get nothing.
And so, I'm trying to say, look, I'm entertaining Indy Carries. I love Indy car. Indy car is a race. It's so much more entertaining to watch than a Formula One Grand Prix.
I love NASCAR. People poo poo NASCAR like mad. You know, I love rallying. Well, I love all forms of sport.
So we literally had our little podcast go around the world. Look at what were the best five events this weekend could be super cars down Australia.
But, you know, people are so zoned and obsessed with Formula One. It's almost why I do the podcast to try and say, look at everybody.
There's lots of exciting motor sport to watch. Of course, then you've got to pay for it, which is the problem.
I mean, I never risked my car for another subscription, which I understand that, you know, but on the NASCAR, who does NASCAR?
Is it platinum premium premium premium, I think, to that? It's about 20,000 a month. But with NASCAR, you get a race every Sunday night.
There are a motor sport plan. There are only about five quid a race.
Well, if you have a pint of beer now, that's six quid.
So, I mean, it's funny how people protest about paying for things without stopping for a moment thinking what value that actually is.
Yes, the perspective on it.
Not either I get a NASCAR race for five quid. I'm also get a lot of other stuff, which I might not be interested in, but it is there.
I put a fortune to Sky, you know, I don't have 100, 30 quid a month, that's so ridiculous.
You know, I don't watch many movies and there's so much on there that I don't watch, which just slightly annoys me.
So, I quite like the specific ones when you just go for them.
There's a lot of the motor sport now. They have their own channels at IMSA TV.
It's really good. I can watch the IMSA races for free on their websites.
I think quite good when motor sports give you free videos.
Where are we going with this tour? Where did we start?
Well, we need to start quickly.
Normally, we start at the beginning and end up at the end and go somewhere in the middle, but we've already got somewhere in the middle.
You asked me what I did, so I said, I'm not a journalist. That's what kicked too many words.
So, don't call me a journalist.
And I think motor sport is a good place to start because you're a big fan racing driver.
And you had it all start up.
Do you want to race car in a magazine?
Why no magazine coming out?
I think why there hasn't been a video made, a film with some of the film F1 film.
It should have been TIFF's life with a famous actor or several.
Because to have no family money at all.
To win a racing car and a magazine competition.
And seven years later, be sitting on the grid of a grown pre as a driver with no finance.
They haven't brought a sponsor to anybody.
It's quite incredible.
And then to end up with a tele-tarch.
It could be an epic film.
It isn't incredible.
I still pinch myself.
I don't believe I've been a racing driver sometimes.
I said, gosh, yeah, I won't drive around Monaco in a Formula One car.
And I go and look at it.
Yeah, I did that.
And I did a little more racing.
It's a weird memory.
I don't believe my life has happened, I suppose.
Because it all happened as a 19-year-old winning this magazine competition,
which was just a shock out of shock of all shocks,
like winning the lottery or something to me.
And then so it just all happened.
I don't know how it happened.
It kept going.
And winning a race car.
I've done a little bit of racing,
sort of amateur racing, whatever.
And I know you're getting the race car, definitely nowadays anyway.
They're presuming same back then.
Is that part of it,
but running a race car and traveling and doing all that.
It's a whole nother, almost probably cost the same as the race car.
How did that, how did you work that out?
Well, the beauty of it was, this is the problem.
Science has ruined motor sport.
This is your number one aerodynamicist anything.
Science has ruined the sport as a simple sport.
Because when I won that car in 1971,
it was a Formula Ford, which was the junior Formula that everybody dreamed of doing.
And we had a race almost every weekend.
And they always like one day races.
Now there's three races.
Because I mean, you go to Formula 3 now.
You have like eight weekends.
You get 27 races because there's three races.
You know, if you have a ship first race your whole way anyway.
So one this guy, the beauty about Formula Fords,
was they were so simple.
Suspension was quite simple.
And I was a civil engineer.
We're trailing civil engineers at university,
sandwiched a creek course and sponsored by Wibbee.
So I was busy being a civil engineer.
And for five years, I was a civil engineer five days a week.
And we can't make him a little lock up garage five nights a week.
You know, the weekend, that was the van driver, the mechanic, and the racing driver.
And ridiculously, I could bumble to the top and become a champion and become the most promising young driver in Britain,
which was voted in 1976, which got me a professional driver in the end.
So I could be a winning and just on my own.
Yeah.
But because if this suspension was a bit out, the Campbell was a path.
You drove.
You could drive through a bad car as a talented driver and get the results.
Yeah.
And so many of us drove around the country.
So I would transition trailers.
You know, with our Formula Fords bouncing around on the back.
You know, if you crash one weekend, you could have a beer with your mechanic on the way home,
or you'd never be with your mechanic on the way home.
Because the next weekend, you're racing again.
It was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful motorsport.
And what you could do on your own income pretty much.
Yeah.
You know, if you crashed, you'd have to get a loan from the bank or somewhere to get it going a bit further.
So I was able to come from a rented flat family, you know, with no money at all.
So, you know, the most promising young British driver in 1976.
The awards like the Autosport Awards, I won the Grover one, which was similar to the Autosport ones.
And today, which got me the public.
I got off of the professional drive.
So it was just a wonderful period.
Nowadays, of course, these cars are so blooming sophisticated and science and technology.
Yeah.
You can't drive through a bad car.
And so you have to have five mechanics because you have to use your suspension.
It has to be millimeter perfect, preloads and campers.
And everything has to be absolutely nailed.
And of course, you have to have a psychologist because the last year's championship with her psychologist,
you have to have a physical trainer because the last year had a physical trainer.
You have to have an eye test thing because of that.
You have to have someone to design your crash shell.
But you know some Twitter, the most important thing of the children over the winter is presenting a new crash.
Yeah.
Which all look the same as the others from 20 yards away.
There's a mess of too much.
So having an orange or a center yellow or gray or black with the rowing club.
No, no.
And so it costs so much money because you're employing five or six people in the truck and, you know,
and all these physios.
And so it just costs a fortune.
I still don't believe in this carting obsession.
I read a magazine.
But it's brought magazine to those new carting championship and people investing in cart series.
And and saying you have to drive a, if you want to be a concrete driver,
you have to start carting it eight years old.
And that really annoys me.
Because I always point out that all the superstars, you can sort of think,
I'm going to just button and handle to take those two for starters.
As soon as they started carting, they won everything.
Yeah.
The talent was immediately, immediately obvious.
So if you started 13 or 14 and you are that natural talent, you will go straight to the top.
You will be in the top five or six very quickly.
Interesting.
The carting is great for sort of building neck muscles.
It builds your body.
It builds race craft.
But you don't need eight years of it or six years of it.
Yeah.
In order to be, and I always love it when someone comes through that hasn't done carting and is successful.
Emma Lloyd, the young, one of the best, the young British female driver to academy for my academy.
She didn't do any carting.
You know, she's a decent horse riding on that anyway.
So this obsession with having to go carting annoys me because I don't think it's needed.
But also, it's the fact that getting in the right team when you're now in a grid full of identical cars, supposedly.
But it's former two, former three, GB three or whatever.
And then all of a sudden you'll look at the results and you'll find two primers there and two other teams there and two.
And they're all in little pairs.
And you're all of a sudden a former two race.
Hold on to the same teams on the front row.
And you suddenly realize it's just actually your engine is because now instead of where I was with a former four,
it was 95% driver, 5% car.
It's now 95% car, 5% driver.
So the brilliant driver, the really brilliant driver is now only two tenths quicker than a very, very good number two.
Look at former one for stappens and otherwise, you know.
And so, I'm suddenly looking at former two.
And we'll hold on a minute.
Is it really showing me the best talent of driver?
Was it the best talent of team?
When they changed the former two cars and prayed, we had Oli Bareman and Antonelli in the same team, Pramer, which had won lots of the years before.
First three races of the new chassis, they were qualifying 15th and 16th.
Now, that had been the first year of them coming up.
They've found 3 million pounds for the sponsorship to buy a Pramer seat.
And you had 15th and 16th.
So it's so hard to find genuine talent nowadays.
And it's so hard for genuine talent to get in the right seat.
It's a very frustrating sport for the young driver coming up the ladder.
And you look at the same, it's that question.
I watch a bit of racing, a bit of Formula One and follow some of that stuff.
And the question I have and the thing a lot of my friends have is,
like, how do we know who's actually good?
Because it's really difficult to tell.
They're all good.
They're all really fast.
Where's the person out driving the car?
You have to look through their whole history each time, which I do.
But then you still get it wrong sometimes.
I think Bautiletto was that good looking at his,
he's sort of dominated Spanish Formula Four, which is a bit of a sideways,
easier championship.
Then he didn't do much.
I think he's former three and former two.
But he's been, to me, the standout star of this year, you know,
this Brazilian boy just, you know, he's now so far ahead of Hulkerberg.
It's unbelievable.
And do you think they're like everyone or lots of people using Sims and logging?
So rather than necessarily doing tons and tons of carting,
logging, a lot of practice and all the data and all the engineering and all the
sort of feedback, do you think everyone is actually at such a high level now
that you only get these tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny differences?
Well, yes, all part of it.
I mean, the trouble is now they're judging drivers as future-grown pre-teams
on simulators.
You know, you can win the Formula Three Championship,
but you're still going to go to a Formula One team simulator.
And I get motion sickness.
And I'm like, Claire does.
And some of the big, I've established up and doesn't do them,
but I think they're beginning to use them more.
So I would have been rubbish if I had been tested in the simulator,
because I'm just...
And so, you know, that's all because you don't have any testing anymore.
You know, there's the not allowed to test their cars.
Whereas, you know, you say they're not allowed to test cars,
but the children, this is one of the budgets of my ridiculous, you know,
I didn't put it.
They now have this Formula Four Middle East Championship
along something to Euro Formula, Freck Formula Regional,
in January, in February, in the Middle East.
And I think in the two championship, there were like 60 children down there, right?
Do they like eight races or something?
They have to have a parent or a guardian because they're underage.
And they're all living in the Middle East.
And they're testing day after day of testing and testing and testing and around and around Valencia.
There was boring little go-kart track in the world.
And it just costs a fortune.
But the whole problem is that you don't do it.
You know, you won't be as good as that, you know.
So, they allow...
They shouldn't be allowed these winter series.
They should be get back to school and play a bit more rugby and cricket and football
and play a simulator in your dorm, a trip night, if you're a boarding school or at home, you know.
Say, it's just too much, too much of everything.
And all this fitness thing...
I mean, the fitness they go on about...
I mean, it's just pathetic, to be honest, you know, with these...
I'm doing 15 laps in a Formula 4 car, you know.
Oh, and I'm going to be...
When they have these competitions for drivers, they have to do...
You know, there was a physical test, they love that, you know.
Plenty see how fit you are.
Oh.
I mean, God, I used to have a pint of beer, sure, two and a couple of cigarettes the night before.
I mean, I go out and win a Formula 4 race, you know.
You don't need that fitness.
I mean, you do when you get to Formula 3 and Formula 2.
But the obsession with the whole...
When you're full of thought, you have to live like a grand prix driver, you know.
You have to dole this physical and have the psychologist in there.
And when you land there, probably it's a psychologist, to be honest.
And so does Lewis.
And that's another thing.
So yes, it's awful.
It's just a shame.
It's got so scientific, so obsessed with data and physical and training.
And you read...
I read Bianca Buster-Menti's sob story.
I reached out.
It was Autosport magazine.
I was at crash.net.
I don't know.
Very good.
All motorsport.net.
So she's a very PR savvy and attractive young lady.
It was a clarinet signed up academy.
You know, she's not doing academy anymore.
So she dropped to GB3.
Or dropped...
Got up to realism.
And she's just how hard GB3.
And I've physically trained.
And I'm ready.
And the long...
You talk about my vocabulary.
You know, as a civil engineer, a racing driver.
And all of the sort of sob special wording.
Everything that goes with society and being woke.
It's all there.
You know, every sentence.
Me and the team will be working forward.
And she said she said we had...
Among best weekend with Hungary or something.
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And I check.
I check all these results of people with these quotes.
Said hungry.
The reason hungry was hungry.
I think it was hungry.
The ready 16 cars instead of the usual 23.
She qualified.
Guess where she qualified.
She got it by the 16th.
A managed to finish 13th.
So all her race results are 23rd, 27th, 27th.
But I'm hungry or it should retract it.
Watch you six to 13th and 15th.
So looks like our best weekend.
But she's back.
And they just avoid the direct question.
You know.
It's sad with the women.
The W series.
The F1 Academy is brilliant.
So it's it's trying to say to girls.
You know, yes, you can be racing drivers as well.
Which I think sometimes they'll admit.
You know, we're not going to make a grumpy driver in the next five years.
Probably they'd be on up to that.
But what we're trying to do is to widen the database to try and find
Maxine Vistappan or.
Lorna.
Lorna Hamilton.
But the problem is when you go back to these eight-year-olds that go cartoon.
I've been eating lightens the problem.
Because if you ask all your eight-year-old girls and boys right at eight.
What would you rather have?
Do you want a go-car or a pony?
Now, this might be sexist.
I might be overstating my position.
But I would suggest that 80% of girls want a pony.
And 80% of boys want a go-car.
So you've always got that diversion early on.
You've got a lot less girls.
You know, wanting to come out in a cart.
And of course, the girls are also their interviews.
Say, you know, well, boys have so much more experience than us.
You know, they've done more, you know.
And so that's why they get all the best drives.
And they're moving up the ladder quicker than girls.
But it's nothing to do with talent to the age.
It's only to do with money.
Yeah.
So if you haven't got a parentage or far parents who've got rich,
managing directors of companies to help their kid.
The only reason all the boys are at the top of Formula Four
is that they've had a lot of money spent on them.
Before anyone knew Lewis or Hamilton knew who they were,
you know, someone's got to spend a couple of million pounds.
So there's nothing to do with the sex.
It's all to do with the parents.
Now, if the parents don't want to spend two million on a daughter
but want to spend two million on a son,
because that's how they think life should be.
They don't want the daughter going motoracing.
Then that's what moves boys ahead of girls.
It's nothing to do with anyone mentored a whole girls back
or all this other rubbish they claim at times.
It's just life, you know, life means that you don't get many parents
spending two million pounds on a young girl being a racing driver.
It is crazy, crazy money.
I love seeing it.
But hopefully now, with Formula One Academy, hopefully now,
more girls will say, no, I don't want to pony, actually,
then because I saw that Formula Four.
That looks quite cool.
I love a cracker.
Yeah, so that's the best thing.
Yeah.
But I actually, I try to write a story about all this.
I've found out the MSA, the MSUK now, the motor sport company.
So I said, the best way to share this is working or not,
what the women's series have been doing.
It's to find out if more girls are getting cart licenses.
Yeah.
They wouldn't tell me.
They wouldn't come out with some MSUK, again, female,
circuit that goes around Britain, where they give them five laps in a cart.
Just that's it, you know, no racing, just a quick experience.
And apparently they have to sign up to do that.
So if they include the people of all sign up for days, three laps,
there's probably millions of them.
So yeah, that's what I wanted.
I can't find it out.
I need a better journalist than me, because I'm not a journalist.
Again.
Yes.
To phone up MSU tray.
And find out, I'm sure you must be able to force them by all these people that dig to stuff.
You know, how many more girls are doing serious carting?
Not one off in Dory and nothing, but a whole season of cart racing with a female cart license.
To see whether that's actually, you know, is going up or not?
Yeah.
I think it's cool to say, let me go there.
I keep on diving off heavily.
I'm going to take it to different areas of racing.
And let's go back a bit.
We started off with your first race car and that sort of stuff.
But so you ended up racing F3.
One point.
And a little bit tiny bit of F1.
Yeah.
Very brief.
Very brief.
One grown free.
Well, I tried to qualify at Monica and I failed to qualify, because of course in those days,
30 cars used to turn up for every race.
And only the fastest 24 got on the grid.
That's quite sad.
It was only the fastest 20 got on the grid.
So I had this very late call to replace Pearl Clevering, so he was injured.
I was in this one car unit part in-sign team.
Only a single car so no drive to compare my lap times with.
And it was a rubbish car.
You know, regular salary qualified 24 for Long Beach, you know, or 23rd.
So I was pretty chaffer.
I qualified 23rd for my Belgian grown free debut in Zolder.
So I thought I'd done all right.
I sat on the back row of the grid at Zolder and looked across and Emerson Fidipaldi.
Emerson Fidipaldi.
Me.
I was still living this dream.
It still was, you know, what?
And I spent about 12 laps battling with Emerson Fidipaldi for the honour of being last.
And I went to Monaco and then, as I said, the end of the first is 20 out of the 30.
And in fact, in the first qualifying, which in those days used to be on the 30th.
And they had a qualifying 30 and on the Saturday.
It rained.
And I qualified 19th out of the 30 cars.
I think I was 3,000.
So I looked at that once, 3,000.
So I said, man, some bloke called an Amprost or something like that.
Yeah.
So I thought I'd mine and I was doing okay.
And I then walked around for Friday when they wouldn't have any running in forward one of those days.
I'm hoping for thunderstorms and clouds to come.
It dried out and the car and done the lap time.
It was broken.
So I clipped to the curb.
So I had to get a spare car and it was chaos.
And I crashed in the swimming pool trying to qualify and failed.
And it was a good non-qualifiers partings.
I had John Watson and Keke Rosberg didn't qualify for the 1980 Belgian group.
It was Mel Monaco.
In fact, for pub quiz, the 1980 Monaco Grand Prix was the only time that hasn't been a British driver on a Grand Prix grid since about 1955.
To the present.
The only missing one Grand Prix ride was the 1980 Monaco Grand Prix.
So what was it like driving an F1 car around Monaco?
Magnificent.
Magnificent.
Magnificent.
Magnificent.
I was remembering the one thing I remember moment, from Sandevo, you go up towards Casino Square.
It was healed.
And it's all those flat out.
It's not straight.
And it's a bizarre feeling because I felt like I was in a rocket ship heading for the sky.
But I can only see about 100 yards as the barriers curved.
It's got this wonderful crest where you almost have to break.
You'd like to break after the crest.
But you're not quite sure and you have to break.
And nowadays they go over the crest flat out.
Break about 50 metres later, probably.
And then the casino square is so tiny, it was just barriers everywhere.
In fact, it helps me use what I try to explain, the brilliant driver and the very good driver
and the other drivers, because the naturally talented, you can do the same time as a naturally
talented brilliant if you work hard or you don't look at flammetry and stuff.
But when I remember Monaco, the thing was my body, my car was arriving in one corner when
my brains were working at what happened to the one 200 yards behind me, oh, gold on another
corner. And gradually as I did more laps, the brain catches the body up, so you almost get
to being in sync and maybe it made us, just having like Nigel Mance sort of could pay
with others, he was like on top of his body. So when things happened, he was a brilliant
wrestle the car, he would react to whatever has happened.
It was always said a lot of that, Sennis and Schumacher's nowadays, their brain is ten yards
in front of their body. And I don't think I ever got to that situation by racing career.
So it's always, I was trying to say that, but that's the thing, you've got to be so ahead of
your body out to be the really, I mean, they talk on the radio now, don't they?
Like, I wasn't quite fit enough, I know it should be fit, you know, to talk about talking
to the radio, I was trying to breathe, it was a bit too much for me, you know, just surviving.
It was, it was magical, but, you know, unfortunately, I knew that they were after Jan Levitz,
I knew that because they kept on meeting, so I was walking around Belgium, and Monica, I
seemed to be talking to Jan Lambson. So I knew I was out, as soon as Jan was committed
to another team for another two races, so he couldn't be released. But he'd qualified
fourth to be having the right car the right day, with Long Beach, the race for Regret
was any crash when he was 23rd in Mindal Horrible Insight. Jan qualified fourth in this
ATS, he was like, I talk at a paddock and inside of the American sponsor, but then
since the American sponsor was, you know, Jean, we need that kid, not that stiff, I knew it
was coming, Lambs would take over, and he then failed to qualify for six Grand Prix's
on the trot when he got the car. So you kind of like, it's one of those things that makes
you feel, well, yeah, C, C, I was good. It was okay. If I'd been in the ATS at Long Beach,
I would have caught on fourth, C, C, because it never takes you back. Once you kicked
out the other side, like several red bull drivers have discovered, you know, you don't
go back up again too quickly. So yeah, it's a magical driver of Formula One car, it's
just awesome. So now they've got past hearing and paddles and all that easy, peasy stuff.
Have you driven a more modern Formula One car? I drove a Williams for a fifth gear
right in 2005 when it was a BMW Williams V10. I mean, just so quick, without rocking them.
And it was amazing for Williams to trust me with the car to start with. It was BMW's
sponsor. It was the new M5 out of the V10, M5, Vicky Partlehenson was driving the M5 and
we set off side by side and I had to do sort of four laps before she could finish three
of those typical things, you know. But then stuck in this thing, you know, I don't look
15. No testing at all, you know. And of course, it was left foot breaking. It wasn't
room. I never, I didn't tell them I'd never done left foot breaking. So I go out of this
thing and it was just so awesome. I'm three laps in, I was knackered, you know, because
I was about 50 years old by now, you know, I wasn't a spring chicken anymore, a bit more
than 50 years old. You know, the neck was gone in about two corners. And the funniest thing
was I always remember all the Formula Two drives that had their first Formula One test in that
year, it was carbon brakes or that stuff. When they were interviewed after, as we know,
what was amazing about those carbon brakes, the brakes were so good. And I thought I wasn't
really stopping very quickly. I thought, what's all this fuss about these brakes? They don't
seem that good to me. No, I've done all of this. I sort of outbreak myself slightly, because I was
getting a bit blurred vision. It was all going so quick for me this stage. So I sort of panicked a
bit and then I accidentally led a bit out of my left foot, which I'd only ever done clutch
changing before. So I realized, okay, you've got to press the pedal a bit harder, but my left foot
wasn't really used to pressing pedals that hard, but it was amazing. Actually, I had
in call my son was at home, and he phoned me, I was out filming somebody, and he said,
some Frank Williams phoned up to talk to you. This was on the Monday afternoon, or the day after
we'd filmed it, or day after it was on the telly, I think, probably. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah,
well, I've got the driver, but you know, so I was taking a piss here, you know, so I was taking a
Mickey. And I was driving home later that day on the phone with the car. And this is Frank Williams,
I just wanted to say to you that was the most amazing piece of television to show the speed of
a Formula One car as opposed to a road car. And you know, Frank is such a lovely man.
There was another thing in my racing graph, this enzyme thing died. I was pounding my way
around the town to my way around the Formula One teams, and I said to Williams, actually, I suggested,
I came up with the idea that why would you ever a reserve driver that does the test team? Because
I'm sure your two drivers are very busy, and you know, a good idea wouldn't it to have a young
drive, but do some running for you. And then you thought about it for a minute, and they want
to do all the driving, if they don't want anywhere else doing any driving. And so I didn't get it.
It was a year later, the Jonathan Parv, and they just said Jonathan Parv, I've got the first Williams
test drive. So it goes in here before my time. I suggest maybe maybe that sat in the back of their
mind. His mind, did he? Maybe that was not by the show. Who was that driver that suggested that?
Jonathan Parv was just one of the Formula 3 champions, you play the test, try it. So then you did
a bunch of GT racing. Yeah, it all sort of went, because it went a little more, a little more first
before GT. So once I climbed Mount Everest and got to the peak, I also love thinking there's only
24-1 drivers in the world, in the world. Every English premiership football team, was it 30 in a squad?
I think it's 30. Yeah, and there's 20 teams. So that's 600 premiership football in England,
the low, and 20 group redripes for people. So it's an incredibly amazing thing. That's why I say
about you know, from winning a car, to being on the top of Everest, the chances of it happening must
have been so many odds to nil. So of course, once you fall off the other side, you cut slightly
down. But luckily for me, the group C championship had just begun, the new regulations that
transform sports cars. So I enter this fantastic decade, one of the best decades of Le Mans
and World Sports Car Championship and starting getting paid to drive, which I mean, paid up till now.
My mum and dad and my girlfriend and a friend drove to Zolder in the family's Datsun 120 Y, a state.
And stood on the fences, you know, you mentioned there on modern fire when they're all coming in
and they're leaving. Well, they've already paid like 40 million to get their kids there.
And they're in the garage, you know, why would I want to say in the back of the...
I always watch those people, the back of the garage is watching the Grand Prix on the monitor
with the head coach, all the celebs. Yeah. I'd rather be in the moto with a nice glass of
Pino Grigio watching here on the suite or something. Yeah, why stand in the back? Anyway, we don't
agree. Yes, a group seat was wonderful. So that's why I started going around the world racing
group seat sports cars. And what was racing a... So you drove the you drove Porsche? Yeah,
Porsche has asked him out in Nimrod Toyota factory driver in the 70s, race not in Japan initially
during the Japanese championship. We're also racing for the two cars and touring cars and just started
wanting it. I was a half helmet wheel travel. Yeah, freelance. And what was racing a group
seat car like coming out of a little bit of Formula One and then getting into a group seat car?
What was a 962 like to drive? As a race car. They're amazing machines, those group seat cars.
But they were heavy. So we had a down-to-feet, but I got into a Porsche respect,
they're not a lot more ground-of-fit than something I started with earlier on. So a lot of downforce,
as those standards. But you had a teammate or two teammates, a wonderful camaraderie,
but they were just really hot stints. I had to start getting fitter and fitter then,
because I was doing two hours in a car and two hours off and then you're back in again.
I shared with Derek Bell and stuff. It was on his way down a bit in sports cars with a wonderful
time with him. So we just raced in so many great tracks, but it was flipping hard. I love the
testing and the qualifying and stuff. Sometimes the races were grueling at fairs. The car wasn't
working, but it was a tighter knack and then you've got to get to the end of the stints,
you're sliding around with no grip at all, losing time. So it was just very pressured,
but really enjoyable being a professional driver, and that's just fantastic.
And at that point in time, were you running quite a different qualifying trim?
Like in terms of bootstrap? Well, that's what annoys me now. Yes, boost went up,
the wings came down. So that's why I loved the qualifying laps more than the races quite often.
And you're allowed to adjust things. That's what drives me out. I'll be on another, I've got a
little hobby horses to stand on. So poxies. This because nowadays you can't change the car.
So you get even a Formula One say, so if it's happened to take a British Grand Prix this year,
they went low down for us for qualifying, which got him on poles. I think he was on pole British
Grand Prix. I think he did. But then they didn't think it was going to rain the forecast for the
sun, the showers. So this low down force, then of course, the workup is raining and you can't
change your wing settings. So it puts two cars out of the race, or out of their normal position,
for the spectators watching. So you've immediately eliminated two cars from being competitive.
Now, I know you can't do too much in this park for me, but I would have thought you can allow
aeros changes. And it's the same at Le Mans with sports cars. You have a homologated shape,
and you can't change it. You can't then put a different nose on it or stick an extra wing
tabs on it. We used to sit in a little wing earlits on the front of the noses again a bit more
downforce. And that's another issue. We're so locked into technology locked into, you can't change
your car. You've got what you've got. So that was which we couldn't do throughout the 80s in
Group C. Yeah, because in F1 now, I wouldn't have a problem with that. I think that sounds
like a great idea. When we're at, if you talk about Le Mans now, we've just finished GTE and
top class. And now we've got GT3. There's so many people that race GT3.
And it's like the most popular, it's got to be the most popular racing series around the world.
And those cars are locked in. Can you tweak aero and stuff a little bit?
You can't do a whole new nose and things like that. No, you can probably put a wing up
with a wing up and down. It's a bit homologated. But now there's so little to do.
You know what you're ending car, they come in and the mechanic turns a little screw by your front
wing, which I think they can do in the race. Because who was moaning? I think Le Clare said they'd
change his wing settings. I think you can change the uniform in a while, but you've only got
two and a half seconds to make a change. And they come in so fast that you do as you see them,
they come in like a little album, you know, it's like do do do do do do turn a knob, just a knob.
And they're changing the diff on the wheel and all that sort of stuff. Oh gosh yeah,
but I'd be lost with all that. So racing at Le Mans, you did a bunch of group C, which
no loads of people look back at that, it eras like pretty damn cool. And then you
raced a bit in the in GT1, did you race a bit in GT1? Well, yeah, because well groups C died.
So that fell away. And then started racing GTs, a list of storm, wonderful V12 Jaguar engine,
that was that. I did a couple of the mobs in that. We did the Daytona 24 hour race and that was on
a new castle football colors. That was great fun. And then we had the that started in fact with the
what was it called the GP. So it started with very standard road cars. Yeah, so we had the
list of storm that Ferrari F40s, it would have been Porsche GTs McLaren's obviously coming in the
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it's not a competition. Wayfair every style, every home. Yeah, I think there was also
sorts of old GTs joined in. What level did you go to fit to the bill? No, I don't know,
I didn't know. Not quite that low spec. But then, of course, it was Porsche because the Porsche
911, this is going to drive to be mad, wasn't quite competitive enough, it just was the culture.
They came out with the first of their 911 GT1s with a long nose, ugly looking duckling.
935, was that fair? No, no, no, that was a proper pucker roll, that's a real pucker too.
Fear when they called it, it was GT1, GT1 anyway. They just blew everyone away. So completely
obsolete in all the current, we were quite close, it was doing quite well. So then,
McLaren came up with a long tail. I mean, it was an ugly, ruined, the beautiful F1,
I know. A horrible long tail, a long nose in order to compete against the Porsche.
And then Mercedes arrived. Then the homologues, that million dollar road cars, CLR, what was it?
CLK GTR. Yeah, so then that day then dominated. So then, it blew away the whole sort of simple,
get your GT car and go and race it. So then it all becomes more homologated and then it gets.
So I think the 90s, it all fell apart a bit. It all went a bit crazy. You had a homologate cars.
It was that sort of transition of, okay, the race cars were race cars, but you kind of had
road cars that were very similar to those race cars. They were like F1 and stuff.
The Porsche one, it just had the monocoque in the middle, I think. Yeah, that was a plastic.
Yeah, and then the shell, the bits at the front of the boat. But then, I'm just GT3, they came in
in the early 2000s. What's the name, Rattell? This is the Rattell bloke, currently credit.
And it's just Transway. It's just absolutely been such a success. And I actually love it. I was
involved in the first series where teams had to have only one make. It was quite good. Each model
originally had six cars in the race. That forced people to go. You know, I was in the last
in Martin that year and every other manufacturer had six cars. It was fantastic, Rattell.
And then he's gradually developed the GT3, so the manufacturers could come in and have a go.
And it was also brought in balance of power, which is a very dangerous thing. And it'll only work.
People were very clever, but he's made it work. And there's always one team who's upset.
And then you get a bit of a tweak and you get to get a tweak. Whereas balance of power and
world sports cars is showing how you can completely go. I swear on this channel or not.
I mean, the last race went the two Cadillacs won in Brazil. They lapped everybody.
Lapped the feet. Yeah. And they're just their computer. They're so computerized. I think the whole
thing's written now to computer program. There's a lot of everything that's slightly world in this world.
How you feed your computer model might well affect what results you get.
And they've got a computer program. So they feed into all the results every lap time,
of every Cadillac, every Porsche, every Toyota, every Ferrari. I don't know when it comes out
with singing. They add three kilometers, three kilograms here. And
when somehow the computer obviously got it wrong, but into Lagos.
And again, if you go that wrong and you get too desperate to stop Ferrari dominating.
And then all the Ferrari fans in Brazil, you get a Ferrari shirt or two out of shirts.
And you turn that to watch those sports cars, the fantastic Ferrari. They win them all.
And you get to the grid and you're, you know, where are Ferrari's there? Oh,
the two slowest cars in the 16 car field. And they were Toyotaers behind them.
Toyota dominated three years ago. Yeah. And it's just stupid. You've got to stop the
computer doing that. You've got to say, I don't know how you do. I mean, it's, it's so hard.
But the point is, I mean, the Trump is with the computer. I think you almost need a different
balance of power for every circuit. Because some circuits with more high speed corners
would suit some chassis more than the balance of power changes. But if you change the balance of
power from fast core and put it on a slow corner, the balance of power maybe won't work.
And then you kind of want to do it for the whole series, right, though, don't you?
But then in reality with that racing, everyone kind of only cares about them all.
Well, yes, which guys are different balance of power that more do their own balance of power.
So they don't actually say that they have a bias when they contribute to certain companies.
But I mean, after qualifying in Britain, I would have gone out and given Ferrari and Toyota
more power overnight. Yes. We want to race tomorrow. We don't want to, you know,
a demonstration of some, yeah, balance of power. But GT boys, I think you've got it.
When you see a sort of BMW M2 and a McLaren going side by side down the straight
of the same speed, you think this doesn't look right. You know, yeah, it works.
It's cool, though. It's cool to watch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's fantastic. It's really good race.
And it does, it does translate. You see the road cars and you see the race cars and you're like,
yeah, they're kind of same, same. You know, ish. So and then you, so you did all this racing and then you
started going on TV. Well, yeah, somewhere. I don't have that. 1987. Chris Goffey broke his
ankle when he was supposed to drive a former the first racing car. And by then, I was dodged
on her. So I have held my wheel travel. I was doing any job I could track test and writing stories
for Autosport magazine and my track tests. And then I started being an expert analyst on the BBC
with with them, the lovely Murray Walker. So it was the year when James Humpner to the Formula One
and he couldn't be asked in British Formula Three and British Formula Four festivals. So I worked
with Murray for about three years before that. So when Goffey couldn't drive his single seat,
they knew my voice, knew my phone number and got me in the seat just to that one thing. And
finding out it's a bit like what I say now when I'm owned about Formula One. This is still relevant.
So this is 1997. Now, so Thomas on television, it looks too easy to turn the corner and out the corner.
And even now, you've got Lewis Hamilton, their power steering of their Formula One cars.
Chasing, you know, for the lead, doing lap record, breaking the lap record,
ran by every lap and fast, and he just turned and opened the wheel and flat my pedal, flat my
and turned in the corner and changed down and changed down. And that's going as fast as he can.
And I look at IndyCar now and boy, you watch IndyCar's St Petersburg Street Race with concrete
and they're looking for opposite lock and you can hear the wheels spinning behind as they lose traction.
And that's what I love IndyCar. You see the driver driving. So when I had this one off test,
I thought, right, I'll make it look a bit hard. Yeah, I won't go the quick way.
So I deliberately said to sideways, had the opposite lock on him because I had reserves of,
you know, I knew I wasn't about to crash, you know, I talked all the way through.
We don't want to have me get up as I have done ever since the embarrassing at times.
And so the producer's like, well, I mean, he's about to die in crash and he can still talk at the same time,
you know, we'll have him back to do more. So I started doing more, more track tests and then
they were actually looking to rev out top and get out that time because the format had got a bit
stayed and a bit, you know, the suitcases in the back and the very old fashioned William Woolard
with his famous foot up on the front wheel, the Woolard, he was exposed.
So about a year after I started doing more, someone met this tall,
lanky idiot called Clarkson who seemed to have a different view on how to film cars.
He came in which took off and then he got his mate Quentin Wilson to come and talk a lot of
bollocks about second-hand cars. And so that's when Tommy just took off in the 90s and then we
launched Tommy and magazine and sadly Jeremy left us to go and try and get a chat show host
which didn't really work at all. And so eventually when the ratings dropped, we had a new
controller, BBC2, came in Jane Riff to decide if she didn't like cars much on her channel.
Fair enough, if you want more ballet, more ballet and more gardening, I don't get.
So we were taken off air, you know, that's when I then went to channel five and took the top
good team and then we created fifth gear. So it's been a wonderful ride. I've enjoyed, you know,
so much of it. It's got me around the world driving every sort of road car more and more
runways and burning rubber and sliding around. So I have actually loved doing it. But again,
when it comes to the pressure of script writing or, you know, I was terrified of saying, oh, this
interior is nice. Jeremy, this interior would snap the nickel elastic off. Yeah, yeah.
Friends, you know, I just don't have that range of vocabulary coming out of my head, you know,
so I've said lots of things are nice. Styling, I've got no idea about styling. Styling is the
eye of the holder. And I won't pick out an air thing to contour and which journalists do now.
You know, I just, when did you start doing some drifting and building that sort of
capability? Because watching you drive and test cars on TV, you're doing the, the tip thing of like,
what? What? What? This car kind of feels like it's all over the place. Which is fun to watch.
Like it is definitely fun to watch. But you're clearly in control to some degree.
So where do you feel that? Because it's straight to why I think, you know, because when I started
feeling airfields, that gave me more and more time to, you know, like the top gear, they've got an
airfield team. There's no jeopardy. You can slide it around. You're not going to hit anything,
make a mistake. I mean, I start, I just handbrake turned into a car park slot with one car.
And this will got it out when you chatted, you know, and I think there was a major management
meeting. It was to whether or not I should be doing this sort of sliding car to a car. But
and then you had just started drifting just to make cars look exciting on telly. And it certainly
took off for me and for the program and people loved it. And I'm embarrassing that because every
topic and how he drifts into them, everything. And it's all, everyone says, smoked tyres. My Chris
Harris, he's now just, he is epic. The drifting Chris Harris does. I probably couldn't keep up with
him now because he's so, he takes the most wildest hypercar out slides of around. He really is
very, very good at doing. But I think I actually start. I think I was the first person to, you know,
smoke tyres on TV. I remember there's two sort of video clips that spring to mind. I'll do the
first one first. And it was you sort of versus Clarkson on a McLaren F1. And you're like,
oh, it's a bit sketchy, but it's fine because I'm a racing driver. Oh, the news night, the news night
spoons. Yeah. Well, Clark and Paxman, when Jeremy was a Paxman, wasn't it? Yeah. In the studio.
I have, we have the club. I have expert Mr. Needle here. Ed's twitchy, isn't it?
Oh, no, Jeremy, in the right hand. No, I love that. It was a huge night's spoons and Jeremy
Clarkson Paxman. And driving a McLaren F1, I think they're sort of known to be a bit
interesting. What, what's your experience of that with the level of skills that you had? Is it,
is it just, actually, it's just fine? Or, you know, tell me about it. No, no, if you press the,
press the pedal too hard, you can have a crash, probably run out to improve the couple of tyres,
but it's the, it's the best supercar hypercar of stupid words. I think there's nothing big on
hypercar. I know it wasn't. I can't be bothered. But there's nothing better, because it had 640
horsepower. I think it was this glorious V12 naturally aspirated BMW behind you. And just
everything was mechanical in a no-pass steering, a little gale of a clack, clack, clack, sat in the
middle. But also, Gordon Wright, it was, you know, it was package, you know, you could take it
from set at the front and suitcase in two kits and, you know, practicalities. But it was just
glorious to drive. It was quite soft. I mean, look at the famous, probably one of my
most famous film that people, everybody still says, I remember you and you drive that McLaren,
but it was, again, it's by highlight reel, as it were. But others refer to Puma when I have
break term with Quentin screaming in the back of the suit. It's the highlight reel. Anyway,
McLaren for me. And you know, I've built it. And also nowadays, if you start a film,
the producers, they all want the opening scene to be screeching tiresome. Yeah. Or show,
because I often would build up the stories I'd like to. And then you go to the climax. And so,
they almost give away what you're doing by having to have the opening pictures, you know,
annoying me. So the McLaren, so we did, we went to the factory to see how it was made. I went
shopping in it in a car park. So it was shopping. And then about six minutes in, I turned to camera.
And people think, I don't generally scare by having it up against always, you know, I just said,
but what you're really want me to do is this, you know, wow. And then on the track, you know,
it's wrong and pitched and slid. But it was the point. If you go too stiff for an amateur driver,
especially, you, you don't feel the limit coming. It's the much, you know, sun,
little flipping on his gone. The whole point about having some body rolls, it warns your body
that you're getting near the limits sort of thing. And to make a car handle, you have to,
to play or to make it over to your undersea, you have to transfer weight. So when you're racing,
you want to move the weight around as slowly as possible, transferring front to rear diagonally,
you want to slowly, you don't want to suddenly change anything. But what I'm creating film
muck about, that's why I do what it's happening. On its nose and a breaking and then turn the steering
really harsh, because I know there's no weight on the back wheels. So, you know, that's one of the
climbers, such you enjoy to drive because I could play with it, you know, which I think now you go
to a one and a half thousand horsepower hypercar and it would be quite hard to get to that limit.
Because if you get sort of five degrees slide weight, then you're spun and gone, you know,
because you haven't got that body roll to change and play the, play with the car so much.
So the muck clam was just famous. And you don't need more than 640 euros, but I go obsessively
mad with these one and a half thousand horsepower, you gatties out a lot at that point because
there's smothered in so much computers now to film ESC traction control. So you never have one
and a half thousand horsepower. You press the throttle, the computer says, whoa, you try to
get a corner here, you can have four hundred horsepower now. That's your lot, you know.
And so it's just to see, I actually read a column, one of my better columns at Topgym Magazine,
suggesting before someone would have one and a half thousand horsepower something runs down,
a lot of people are bust up in London and we say, how have we learned a 19-year-old time,
one and a half thousand horsepower cars, but is we self-regulated? So I'd say, okay, maximum power
for the Supercars 650 horsepower, because that was plenty from the planet one, you know,
four-wheel drive rally car, the 400 horsepower in front wheel drive, 300 horsepower.
So we'd give maximums. So now every new Porsche 911 for decades had to have another 30 horsepower.
So it's just because it had to have more than the old model.
Whereas if the limit was, say, 400 horsepower for that, or 500 horsepower for that, whatever you pick,
well, the next 911, we had the same regulation 500 horsepower, but now gives another five-mile
gallop. So we keep our powerful cars, which society might not want us to have,
but we look green at the same time, because we're reducing the emissions and stuff.
And they might have a bit lighter or, you know, go that way.
But I watch these things go around Goodwood Festival, you know, what is it, the
bleed, is it? People love the kids and YouTubers, well, wet themselves over, you know,
get anywhere near. And all these one-off manufacturers you've never heard over the one-and-a-half
thousand horsepower thing. And almost everyone I saw on the, I only saw the TV thing was just
crawling up because the poor old driver was terrified about being a throttle. And I mean,
see what one-and-a-half thousand pound, one-and-a-half thousand pound would do.
And the plain old GT3 Porsche came through, wow, the driver obviously using, and it was way
more entertaining than all these ridiculous three million pound cars that could end up in some
Middle East showroom for the rest of their lives, trawling up the hills.
So true. Seeing the, yeah, Porsche Cupcar normally driven by Harry, something.
I can't remember what his last name is, everyone on the Cupcar drivers.
And just like fully on the limit, you know, like really like on the edge.
Just looks amazing.
All that can-am car last year is one of the stars, you know, can-am. That's what I was.
And I don't want to see them donut again in front of the house. I want to see, I want to see
full acceleration. Yeah.
Past the straight models. He what it sounds like, you know, on the song.
The McMurtry, I think that is one of the most mental things I've ever seen.
No, no, I know, but I can't go too excited to see anything really in the audience.
And it's fantastic, but it's silly.
It's silly. Well, it's like records that really annoy me.
Another, you know, hobby horses does so many hobby horses in my backyard.
So when Audi came out, they took the pipes peaked in and they went around
and spar quicker than the full one car.
And if you've got an unlimited budget and no regulations, of course, you can beat every record
in the record book because, you know, we've got regulations holding things slightly under control.
So the pipes peaked thing, just the other way.
I mean, the onboard, it was just pointed square.
He just went down the corner.
No, he shot another corner.
We brave man to do it.
So I didn't excite me much.
Whereas we had Dan Gurley and some eagle, four-but-a-one car with wings on it going up the hill
but it was dirty and dusty.
I mean, it was just so exciting to watch.
So the muck-murty, you know, again, yes, he's just incredible,
but you're just hanging on inside it.
So none of us are going to drive it, really.
And it strobes that and dust out the back.
That is fantastic.
The Porsche in 2019, when they did that spa and they did the nerve-overing lap.
Do you remember that?
Yes, I think they called it the Trident Spa.
I was thinking, now that it was Porsche that did it, you're right.
In their long car.
It's faster than the Formula One Cup.
Well, yeah, if you turn up the power and put it next to them.
Yeah, that was pretty much.
No, don't get me going on nerve over that time.
What is the point of those?
So what's the drive?
Who was driving?
What was the temperature?
What tires did you have, you know?
You mentioned Chris Harris earlier.
And there was a video I wanted to talk about, which was sort of
the lap versus P1 versus 918 video, which you appeared in at the end.
Doing your usual tiffness in a lap, I believe.
How was that?
Like, did you get, did you get to drive all three cars?
Well, yeah, not for long.
It was pretty stressful, because it was one day's filming.
You know, so it's always you want to get all these shots down.
I had to go out and learn the track and learn the Ferrari.
I tried them all, yes.
I mean, the Ferrari's my choice at the end.
And that's where Harris bottled out.
Does anyone remember, nobody remembers the ending?
When Harris decides, we had to say which one we prefer.
Yeah, right?
It's all right.
The car was the fastest, but then it was on his stupid ground effect,
which they wouldn't allow it to be on road spec.
So I said, the Ferrari.
And then he turned to Marino and said, you know, which one?
And he just said all of them.
Because Father Indoor owns all of them.
So he couldn't upset one of them on the other.
So Marino said all of them.
And then Chris, when he came to Chris to make his choice,
he just said, uh, the last one I drove.
Yeah.
He really parked out.
But the Ferrari was the best one, because it was more naturally
aspirated, less electricity.
So it was more, it just handled better.
And it was had a much better steering.
Porsche, they seem to love the Porsche.
I didn't like the interior and I didn't like driving position.
It was four wheel drive and I didn't really like it at all in any way,
manner or form.
And of course, the McLaren, they wouldn't let it run on the same ride height,
road ride height.
It had to be contractually obliged.
So yeah, I mean, the turbo noise was fantastic and the grip was fantastic.
But I just felt, you know, it's a racing car.
Too many of the people in design are putting a racing car and then sort of
crawling up the hill and trying to sell them a three million pounds, you know,
but they're not adding again, going back to from McLaren F1.
It's a road cloud with lute and luggage.
But the funniest thing about that epic, the trilogy,
was they all had the teams out of the McLaren of Porsche and Ferrari.
And because they're stupid hybrid stuff, every time we've done three or three laps.
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It didn't regen enough.
Like, if someone won, it has to regen enough for each lap.
But of course, he didn't.
So after three laps, your electricity was gone.
So all you had left was your...
What have you already asked for a bit?
So when we were filming the next guy,
you'd see the mechanics of the first guy driving round and round the paddock
behind the pit's room, charging the stupid thing.
So it's why I'm McLaren about it never initially did the great Nürburgring lap record.
Because it would run out of the electric pound halfway round the lap.
So it's an interesting one.
That.
And then there was, I mean, there was rumors when the laugh came out,
that the hybrid basically wasn't even plugged in.
But it didn't have much of that support.
It didn't have much at all.
In fact, I turned up on the grid for a start.
I said, I've got an electric.
I did one quick lap again before we filmed the start of the race and the start.
That was pretty epic.
Pretty epic weekend film.
Chris is so good at organizing it.
Chris makes things happen as he's so good on his own to sort things,
rashing around up the producer, direct and financier and do.
He was the chef at night, but a great pastor was in the house for all living.
Chris just goes at 100 miles an hour and don't stop when it's on track or off track.
Yeah.
That clip of the three of you driving at the end of that video is one of my favorite.
Because you're clearly having so much fun as well.
The worst thing is we were going to do more really fun shots,
but one of them broke down slightly.
We had these amazing drone shots we were going to do.
We were more disappointed at the end of the day because we hadn't done these real
climax shots that we were after.
We got the still.
The sunset still was still pretty epic.
Yeah.
And that road car, like P1 in race mode, whatever,
it's that thing of like, we see it a lot with hyper cars now.
Things like, I don't know what the Valkyries like.
I'm sure it's pretty mad, but it's sort of tending in that direction.
It's a race car for the road, like, yeah, but it's not a race car.
It's neither.
It's a bit, it's a rimb between, isn't it?
That was Ferrari.
Well, it was FXX's where the owners could only drive their cars when Ferrari
have a day with their cars.
Pretty cool, though.
Yeah, cool.
You've got a couple of millions there.
You're spending a lot of money and whatever, but you look at those
and you go, okay, it's got a pretty sick engine in those things.
I'm sure they're pretty fun on track.
Yeah, but the drivers can't get anywhere near their capabilities.
That's the other thing.
But they are having fun.
Are they?
Are they having fun? I don't know, actually.
Or they terrified.
They terrified.
Of a big massive bill.
Did that ever speed their doing?
Does that ever come into your mind driving cars?
No, because that will likely, you know,
a race that good would in a million pound cars,
you know, but to the owners rule it in on it.
The whole thing is that crash in a car,
it's the same a new car, an old car,
you're still replacing bodywork and stuff, you know.
It's only the catch fire.
These old historic cars burn to the cinders,
and that will be completely tragic.
But if they're dented, they can be undentied.
So it's, you know, we've got to take that into mind.
How does the racing, because you've raced it good with quite a lot.
Every, every, every one.
Every single one.
No, every single one.
In fact, another epic topgid,
you get to see the first epic revert on YouTube.
I did a topgid video for the very first.
Good, but still epic, beautiful film.
Really nicely done.
What's the, do you have a top racing,
good word experience?
Leading in the list of nobly into
Nice.
Antwick corner on the first lap.
One of the best photos in most good
book, me and that yellow,
a Q&A bell,
a list of nobly leading with the Ferrari chasing me.
Epic, nothing shot.
Very cool.
Just, yeah, and I haven't driven a Formula One car,
which annoys me.
I've only ever driven sports and GT cars.
Oh, it's a fun stuff.
And then recently,
you've been involved with Love Cars.
We're for a while now.
Yeah, yeah.
You've had two series.
It started off as YouTube.
Yeah, on Prime, we've done YouTube,
we've had the ones with Love Cars on the road.
Is it sometimes on the Prime,
but we're trying to get a budget to make another out.
We've got lots of film footage,
but full work, so hard,
full wood, and that's it.
You know, but finding the budgets now takes, you know,
I mean, the YouTube boys sort of self-finance
and they do their own editing and video filming themselves.
And if you're very clever,
like Supercar Blonde,
you get in early,
just point at things and then millions of pounds.
But trying to make a,
trying to make a magazine program with no budget,
you know, and unless you get massive hits every week,
you know, it's so hard to,
well, as you know, you're in the business,
you know, trying to generate without sponsorship.
So he's looking for sponsors now
so they can maybe make a lot more.
Because you've driven on that.
You've done some pretty cool stuff.
I saw a video of you driving a Porsche GT1 somewhere.
A blue one.
Yeah, yeah.
Yes, that guy up in Scotland.
In Scotland.
Yes, he's yeah.
Road going, yeah.
Yeah, that was wonderful.
We get on, that's it.
When we get people lending his cars like that,
they're pretty epic.
And we drove them.
I did a good, great Ford GT.
I really enjoyed doing that.
But Pembroke,
the truck isn't with tracks now for YouTube,
it's for our level.
Yeah.
We used to be able to get a track for 500 quid for the day.
And it's now £3,000 for the day.
You know, that's kind of it.
So wait, you see, you see a lot of people
fill me at a clan now.
Yes.
Which is a lovely little friendly circuit.
But it's one of the only tracks
that's, you know, not, you know,
in thousands of pounds a day.
Yeah, you just can't afford.
So you see so many people driving road cars
or driving, you know, like UM5,
BMW and a road car.
And, well, this handle's great.
It's really handling.
It's not handling till it's doing
about 70 miles an hour anyway.
And fun enough, I managed to fill me
with Vicky Bartlett-Lenson's
got a little series from Drive,
Driver Review.
Yeah.
Again, YouTube, which I did the M5 for.
And we managed to get out on that every man's circuit
in the Midland somewhere.
So I thought, I finally got a bit of a play.
So luckily, I did this wonderful.
I had a really good drone operated.
A wonderful smokey, one way that.
The other one stayed on the panel shot,
which is on the video on Driver Reviews.
But the next step I'm round the body of every man,
people, you can't make that noise,
you can't see it, you can't see it, you can't see it.
Oh, no.
That's why we paid you some money.
A Pembre.
Pembre now, they won't let you
can't remember on the track.
What?
So if you know,
they've got to be over the barriers.
A circuit's made you have crash helmets,
which I never had a system saying,
I'm just testing a row car in the manner it was supposed
to be tested.
They're all saying they've got to have helmets,
tiff, and after sign,
disclaimers to say, you know.
So it's getting a bit desperate
for doing that sort of film in any case.
It's almost you have to go off to the front
so you're going to find a track overseas,
which is pretty cheaper and less regulated.
I'm just saying that's the move now
for making those sorts of films,
because it just seems to be getting harder and harder
to do interesting things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You've got an airfield, I suppose,
but in terms of those airfields,
they're a bit rough and readiness.
You've got to dance folks in good condition
but other airfields,
you see people filming on,
but there's only one bit of the track you can use.
The rest has got broken down rubberly poles,
which wouldn't be so good.
It's super abrasive surfaces and things like that.
Yeah.
It's becoming harder and harder
to film fun things really.
And you want, I will remember,
and I've seen loads of clips of people drifting on roads,
and it's like, you know, close calls,
professional driver and stuff.
They will say that.
Yeah.
But wait, but they're all on a launch in Italy.
On the same beer road.
But it does look, you need the proximity.
Yeah.
For things that live in the field.
Yeah.
There you go.
Harder and harder.
What excites you outside of racing?
My golf handicap.
Oh, yeah.
Golf.
I love golf.
Golf is that I'm playing this afternoon.
I only play that twice a month from.
I haven't got any better in 40 years.
I don't think I'm saying that.
So they're at 18 handicap.
It's the most frustrating sport
because I can be like Tiger Woods once a year.
So one of my clubs, you know, I'll hit shots.
Well, God, did I hit that?
Was that Tiger Woods that hit that, you know?
So the dealer, I can hit every shot brilliantly.
But unless you do twice a week or something,
you just never do them every time you hit the flipping thing.
It's like jumping into an F1 car once a month for one lap.
We're not testing.
Yeah, you wouldn't get very quick.
You'd be at the same lap time 20 years later.
Yeah, exactly the same thing.
So yeah, I love golf, where I love going.
And so I've got a mo and a flail mo.
And I smash the torch and get a chains around.
Burn and bomb fire.
So I like relaxing at home, but the kids are all left now.
So it's kind of not quite so exciting.
And football, of course, I've forgotten football.
Where's my mug?
I've got a mug here.
The mug's over there.
The mighty saints.
The mighty saints.
Southampton season ticket holder.
So I really, and funny if I often tweet,
you know, that, that I come over a very exciting game.
I've had more despair, joy, passion.
In 90 minutes, you know, that a full but a won't
get me in a whole season of racing.
You know, you come home after a football match.
And if it's been good and exciting and you won, preferably,
it's full of emotion and excitement and
in front of your face excitement.
So I love, you know, so obviously,
Southampton's a bit of a bouncy up and down,
down the chair and the chip down.
We go up and down.
So we have joys and dispares.
But sometimes I think a bit like sort of form of one
fans, really fans of Red Bull or McLaren.
That, that, that, it's almost boring when you go along,
if you're Premier League because they win what 90% of their games,
we never pulled back, you know.
And so yeah, we won again, you know, it's sort of, you ever won.
Because they go, they're expected to win.
There's only very occasion when they lose.
They all have to, they're football,
they're all that isn't it.
It starts here.
And they go home to kill the cat.
It was a Southampton.
We're quite used to winning and losing.
So you take everything into your mind.
Which is why it's quite nice, you know,
sponsoring following Williams for one team.
It's almost more exciting than following McLaren
because they go up down the grid and, you know,
if relegation was a, a reality in F1,
that would be quite interesting.
I think it would be a bit harsh,
because the money involved, obviously, you know,
you drop out and whatever.
But like, if you mess up and you're gone
and then someone else comes and has a crack.
And then when they should relegate drivers, maybe, maybe.
Yeah, it's driver.
But I've got another brilliant player in my mind.
So this frustration of drivers like,
if I'm quite a few former two champions,
they haven't made it.
Yeah, like Drunk, but Drunk, Drunk, Drugavitch.
Drunk was football.
Drugavitch, right, he's been asked to march in Chess Driver
for about three years now.
He won the former two championship.
It was the Belgian boy that,
quite to get them really,
he's now ended up in America.
Then he got dropped from that.
Did Indy Car.
Anyway, he won the former two championship.
French, not Belgium, French kid.
That it's frustrating when you win the former two
championship and then you don't become a grown pre-driver.
So you think, well, I've done everything I can, you know,
and then, so knowing that the lower teams say,
Haas, or we were sort of,
there aren't many lower teams that almost
still got manufacturers.
But anyway, so the FIA, by a seat in say, Haas, all right.
So that seat is ours for the next season.
And you have the driver that will be in the Haas for the next season
will be the former two champions.
Yeah, yeah.
So it all day, all year long, you're building up,
you know, the batch in the last round, you know,
one of these two drivers is going to be a grown pre-driver next season.
And you'll see them FIA Haas for the next season.
So, and that'd be a great way of making sure, you know,
only before one year.
So if you're not brilliant in that year,
no one will pick you up, you'd be going to sports cars.
But at least for one season, you'd become a grown pre-driver.
After all those years of that dream of getting there,
that one seat would just be, you'd have it for one year,
and if you're not brilliant in round.
And I feel like that would be quite cool for sponsors.
Because you could talk all about that,
like how you're doing all the stuff,
like you're actually helping,
it's not just whatever billionaire's kid has come in.
Yeah, I have to go. He's got to go soon.
He's got to go.
He's got to go, embarrassing his father.
And then his father continues to manage the way he sits,
to drive a brief slouch, he's doesn't he?
And just monosyllabetic.
Monos are difficult words.
And monosyllabetic answers.
Terrible child.
It's tricky.
It's tricky.
Where do you see, how do you rate the current crop of drivers?
Well, you might have to listen to love cars on the grid on Monday.
Half the check out.
We're doing a half-term report to check it out.
Tune in.
There's several that need to go.
I thought I was strong, I needed to go.
I think people are all nonsense.
I've got another brilliant idea.
Of course, I should be in charge of the FIA.
So now, if you haven't become world champion after, say, 200 grumpies,
I mean, three heavy grumpies, you have to retire.
Hey, so now you've got quite a good thing.
So in the beginning of the season, you'll know that this is Hulkenberg's last year.
Yeah.
He has to retire.
So yeah, every grumpie has his little fan club and waves good buy it in Germany,
waves good buy it in Spain, you know.
And we know there's going to be a spare seat as well.
So maybe the former two-champion might be thinking,
I can have that seat.
And then you can go off every wonderful career,
running more millions of pounds as a world sports car driver or going to Indycar.
So it's not the end of his racing life.
But look, you've had flipping 200 racing in that seat.
Was it 240?
So 240, 24 a season now, isn't it?
So we're 10 years.
10 years.
You've honked a Formula One seat.
Yeah, it's a lot.
You haven't won sort of, although we all went mad when Hulkenberg got his part.
And I was also extremely joyful to watch Hulkenberg got the podium.
Because he's a great race.
One of the more, you know, he's just never quite been stuffed out.
Maybe because he'd never gotten run.
So yeah, so they'd have to retire.
Unless you've been a world-check.
World champions can stay on the line and say, well,
if you haven't won the World title after 240 grump,
please jog on.
Yeah, that's insane.
Fair enough.
And that will be good publicity all year.
It's your, you know, how you're feeling.
This is your last grump race season, you know.
And what?
I was actually thinking about Hulkenberg's third place.
And I'd like some statistician to comment.
Do you have comments below?
Yeah, comment below.
Comment below.
Comment below on the video.
Did he actually overtake anyone on the track?
I'm intrigued to know.
Because it was all strategies.
He started 19th.
Then we said, got a 19th to 3rd.
I think he just stopped always at the right time.
Moment.
Leap from little groups.
But that is overtaking.
No, it's not.
Before one of those statisticians, you're going to say,
the brilliant season of this race, we had 88 overtakes.
Yeah.
No, we didn't.
In the pit.
In the pit.
In the pit.
So I'd love to know about the stat.
Yeah.
So who else would have to go?
Well, a lot of Lonsa is running out of time.
I get bored with a Lonsa.
I have to say, huge.
Why don't you tell it to drive a grape for the sport?
It's always a bit me, me, me.
When he's not winning race, you always had to grab a little headline
story just to start.
Well, that's how he's stayed in.
That's how he's still there.
What about Lewis?
But then you'd see Lewis.
Been around.
Been on Lewis.
No, no, no, no, poor Lewis.
He's got too much to head now.
He wants to be a rock musician, not rock, sorry, wrong genre.
He wants to be involved in music and fashion.
He wants to do other things.
You know, the Ferrari is obviously a difficult kind of drive.
He's not got his head around it.
So he gets worse.
I think last year's Chevy isn't at his last year.
I think maybe the Ferrari will be the car.
These stupid new regulations.
Don't get me started on the new regulations.
If he gets lucky in the Ferrari,
I've got the formula right.
He might be nice.
He might win again.
He might win a race.
I just don't think Ferrari will win.
We don't know when these stupid regulations
have no idea who's going to get the formula right.
Maybe he's just going to get it right.
They seem to get other stuff wrong.
They just seem to fall apart.
They've got the fastest car.
Stratus wrong.
Oh, no.
Anyway.
Yeah.
What happened to Leclerc in the third session?
Was he tyres these planks to the time of the tyres pumped up
so he wouldn't swear his plank down?
That was one of the theories.
Did they crank on a bit of wing?
That was another theory.
Many theories.
He just went so much slower, didn't he?
Just disappeared backwards.
Oh, well.
Funny car.
I'll see his car.
It is.
It is.
So who else?
No, I don't know who else.
Yeah.
But the trouble is I won't lend it to win,
but I think Oscar's going to win.
That's the most depressing part of the season.
I think that's going to happen.
And like, you know,
Lander, you've had your chance.
Unfortunately.
It's the first chance he's had.
You know, a car into winning the tyre.
Yeah, but his team is really fast.
It'd be so Australian.
Australia is our deadly enemy.
England, Australia.
Cricket.
I would like Lander to win.
Any sport.
Any sport.
The Australians are our deadliest enemies.
Yeah.
We got this slightly boring state character.
British driver, British cars.
That would be good.
What exactly?
Are they all kind of British cars, though, to be fair?
Well, yeah, that's true.
Well, yeah, I can claim that.
Right.
Well, I normally wrap these up with five questions.
Oh, you are running.
Oh, gosh, I hate these things.
Do you have a most memorable driving trip
or journey or possibly race?
I hate these things.
Porsche 944 Turbo cruising back from
Group C racing diesel via Germany.
With the wife back home.
I was loving Porsche 944 Turbo.
One of the most underrated cars.
Toyota Turbo had storage space.
You could go to the mall,
be sleeping bags in the back,
put the rear seats down.
Well, that was my most epic sort of
personal trip.
Yeah.
Racing and Porsche driving over the road trips.
Yeah, yeah, that's sort of nice.
Nice and journey.
Yeah.
If, I know you sort of feel like you're not
you're into road cars, but like in the middle,
you're race driver.
If you're going to drive one car,
one sports car for the rest of your life,
what would it be?
McLaren F1.
McLaren F1.
Not T-50.
Was that a sports car?
No, I haven't even driven that yet.
No, no, I haven't followed up on
I haven't gotten the least.
I've never been to film.
I know where to film.
I've got to get a track.
So I'm taking a T-50 for a few roads
down the road.
No point really, is there?
No, but I mean anything, anything real
which I've got a BMW 3C is touring.
I just don't buy a car.
I had to buy a car after so many years
getting freebies.
Nightmare.
So the 3C is,
and the M5's got too much power.
I mean, it's a bit sick.
It's really heavy now.
The new one.
It's got too much power and stuff,
so you know,
nice little 3C is touring.
You don't need too much power.
So I need space.
Railway drive.
I have a little bit of fun.
Railway drive.
Yeah.
Most interesting car
to you at the moment.
My son's 20-year-old voxel course.
Now, this is it.
Well, this is interesting
because it's what I talk about
when I talk about electric cars
and what they do where we're at at the moment.
Because electric cars,
if you've got money,
you've got plug-in,
if it suits your lifestyle,
and you don't give a toss
about driving enjoyment at all,
they're fine.
They commute to vehicles.
You plug them in and don't commit.
So yeah, they're brilliant.
But the people it's going to hit most
are the less well-off
in the students,
these world-flat dwellers.
There's my son's got these 20,
actually, it's known that it's 23-years-old
voxel course,
bought for a thousand pounds.
And him and his mates
went to the South of France
and back with it last year.
And great fun, you know?
Of course.
It's down in me garage.
It's been sold at the moment
because he's working up in London.
Doesn't be the car and stuff.
But when I used to borrow it occasionally,
just for the fun.
Yeah.
And I got it, I gave it
drove up and down with a very short drive,
but just
wore the engine up,
make sure the brakes weren't sealed.
And just a joy of sitting in it.
Two little round white dials
with rev counter and thing
and little gearbox.
It's got a lovely gearbox
course of that V-Ear.
It's got a high-reving engine
to a 16 valve, I think.
And it just felt so light,
just driving it,
just thought this is what we enjoyed so much.
We drove these cars,
dearleavers and clutch pedals.
You're involved with the driving.
Now, in 30 years time,
there won't be
an equivalent 1,000 pound car.
Because the batches,
when they,
but they are lasting longer
than we all expected batches
to be fair to the battery world.
But you're never going to put 30,000 pounds
with a new batches
in the 1,000 pound,
that doesn't quite work, does it?
So you're not going to re-batch
a really old,
tied electric car.
And also the,
promise smaller cars,
then they only go 100 miles at a minute.
Minis about 120 miles,
something so small.
So to go on a trip across Europe,
even if there's a charging station,
every petrol station,
it's still going to be a nightmare
of a logistical thing.
So it's really for those people,
what are they going to do?
And I think they want to push
everyone to public transport them.
I said,
you're poor,
you're going to go to a bus.
So I don't really know,
that's what saddens me,
that the kids that turn up on,
you know,
Sunday car meets,
we have a thrutterly occasionally,
you know, they all like the bonnets
and little 16 valves,
and they polish things up,
and they put exhausts.
And as there's a car culture out there,
I think we try to ignore,
you know,
there is actually a lot of people
that loves cars,
and polishing them,
and cleaning them,
and putting new headlights,
and like bulbs in them or something.
And that's what it interests me most,
what's going to happen
to that sort of type of car?
Yeah.
Because they're just,
they're so much fun to drive,
and they're going to disappear.
And it is,
it is so refreshing.
I kind of,
I kind of forget,
I have a little,
a little EV,
it's like my run around,
and then I've got some nice sports cars and stuff.
But I kind of forget,
and forgot what a light hatchback
was like to drive,
because there are little EVs,
like 1500 kilos or something,
rented a car abroad,
and I know I can't remember what it was,
some kind of rubbishy thing.
And it was really light,
and you're just like,
oh wow, instantly this is fun.
Even though it's not fast,
whatever blah, blah, blah.
But it's fun, it's responsive.
I've got a journey to the LP that you wanted.
I have.
I tried one of those about six months ago.
What did you think?
Oh, wonderful.
Problems, I'm interior design
that's put a hexagonal,
stupid steering wheel flipping thing.
God, they annoy me.
But I mean, what a joy,
you know, just
and the pop bang, bang on the overrun.
I mean, it's artificial,
you know,
which makes you smile,
I'm like, well, I'm going to accelerate again.
I'm going to lift off,
and it's going to pop and boom, boom, boom,
and just so light,
and you feel the road
to the steering with seat of your pants.
And that's what, you know,
whether it's driving a car in F1
or a 24-year-old Vauxhall Corsa,
that's what makes me smile.
And that won't be available to people in 20 years' time.
And that sensation that a car
and guy had a,
was it a Fiesta ST,
the final edition,
whatever for a weekend
or a week or something.
And just that sensation when you turn
on a road at road speeds
into a corner,
and you feel the backgo,
maybe I'll come around,
maybe,
and you're like, oh my god,
this car's alive.
It's alive.
It's alive.
That is the word.
EVs are dead,
old-fashioned.
Kind of are.
The petrols tend to be alive.
And final question.
5 car garage.
Unlimited value.
Garbage, not that big.
It was a McLaren F1.
A McLaren F1.
There's various BMW M3s
from different eras,
which I can't remember the best number.
I probably go for,
never start with the M5 with the V10 engine.
Whichever, I don't remember my F numbers.
I think it's out of 10.
So I've got my Supercar.
Then I've got my M5
with the V10 in it.
A Lotus Elise.
Original Lotus Elise.
Now, but again,
I mean, I remember doing that story.
You know, and I just,
I think ended it in a phone box
talking to my wife and I can't come home
because I'm just driving the most
joyful car to drive.
That's a revelation.
A Morris Thousand.
Because that is the most fun to car
which I've learned to drive.
I'm not ever convertible in the garage
with a hood doubt.
So it's just ready to go out to the pub in.
A Morris Thousand convertible Elise.
I've got a saloon car.
I've got the M3.
No, so I've got an M5 with my saloon car.
I've got an M5.
I've got a middle sports car.
I've got my old car.
I could have thinking of something else, though.
Would you have a race car?
Well, I've got my racing car.
Yeah, well, I've got my Lotus 69.
I'm one in the magazine competition.
That's in my garage already.
So it's the only thing.
I always loved it when I played charity
gold-based and stuff and the
these people that sold their plumbers
company and took it about them.
They got the new Ferrari.
They had a Lamborghini.
I had a couple of Porsche's.
Now I've got a Ferrari.
But what do you think?
What have you got in your garage, then, too?
I've got my little racing car.
I've got my motor,
flail motor and my quad bike.
And that's it.
But you haven't got any lamp, no.
I've never bought any hyper-super-anything.
I haven't bought a car for 40 years.
My thing's going to have something low-batch.
I'm going to low-batch.
Oh, can you plug in?
We're nearly at the end.
No, we're closed.
No.
It's still working.
It's still working.
It's still working.
We'll keep going.
We'll keep going.
Well, there you go.
You've got your five things.
And so, yeah, I've got five percent on me to go back.
Well, thanks very much for coming on the podcast.
I've been enjoyable, but thank you for taking me back
through my memories.
I forget some of the stuff.
I have to, you know, be reminded myself.
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About this episode
Tiff Needell shares his journey from racing driver to television personality, discussing his experiences on Top Gear and Fifth Gear, as well as his passion for motorsport. He reflects on the evolution of racing, the impact of technology on the sport, and the challenges faced by aspiring drivers today. Tiff also shares insights on various racing series, the importance of genuine talent, and the future of motorsport in an increasingly digital world. His candid anecdotes and humorous takes make for an engaging listen.
Original notes
I sit down with Tiff Needell — racer first, TV legend second — to talk F1 beginnings, Le Mans nights, and how the airfield days birthed that trademark opposite-lock testing style. We get honest about what makes a car feel alive, the quiet magic of cheap manuals, EV tradeoffs, and Tiff’s forever garage from McLaren F1 to Morris 1000.
Tiff's Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/1L311xIKsJMmXpyaF1jbbZ
Enjoy,
Show Notes:
00:00 Tiff Needell: End of an Era for Drivers
02:49 Racing Driver → TV: Car Control on Camera
05:35 Motorsport Then vs Now: Cost, Safety, Show
08:45 Tech in Racing: Data, Aero, Tyres, Workload
11:47 Driver Pathways: Karting Costs & Sim Time
15:04 Women in Motorsport: Pipeline & Opportunity
17:54 Why F1 & Group C Thrilled: Power, Noise, Risk
20:45 GT Racing Explained: BoP, Big Grids, Fan Access
23:49 Media’s Role: Storytelling & Authenticity
26:46 Drifting 101: Technique Meets Spectacle
29:42 McLaren F1 Legacy: Design, Feel, Numbers
51:46 Filmmaking x Car Dynamics: Shooting Real Speed
58:05 Hypercars Compared: Performance vs Usability
01:04:13 Auto Media 2.0: YouTube, Algorithms, Niches
01:08:12 Beyond Racing: Golf, Mindset, Longevity
01:17:53 Future of Driving: EVs, Weight, Feedback, Fun
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Sam Moores
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