There have been a great many Stigs that have worked for Top Gear over the years. Ben Collins has perhaps the strongest claim on being The Stig, given he was the chief tame racing driver during the show’s golden era. He’s recently been back to recapture some of the magic by retaking a lap record at the famous Top Gear test track.
In Drivetribe’s latest video, we get to see Collins return to Dunsfold Aerodrome to reclaim his position on top of the charts. Top Gear has been dead for a while, but the track is still very much there.
Collins needed a serious weapon to get back on top. To that end, he procured an Ariel Atom 4R. It retails at around £80,000 ($102,156 USD). For that money, you get a tube-framed racer with serious aero, 400 horsepower, and a kerb weight of just 1466 pounds (665 kg).
The Atom 4R is fast by any measure. But Collins had a tall task ahead, as he attempted to break a lap record set by his successor Stig in the 2008 Ariel Atom 500 V8. That time stood at 1:15.1, and was recorded after Collins’ acrimonious split with the Top Gear production. Making life harder, the older Atom has both a power and weight advantage. It has 500 horsepower on tap, and a kerb weight of just 1212 pounds (550 kg).
This isn’t Collins’ first attempt to break the record. He previously booked a session at Dunsfold off his own back, hoping to prove he could round the circuit quicker than his replacement. However, that attempt was killed by Top Gear producer Andy Wilman. Having heard about the attempt, Wilman allegedly demanded Ariel deny Collins the use of its car, else it would never appear on Top Gear again. Charming.
Years later, things have changed, and Ariel were happy to hook Collins up with the Atom 4R. Right from the drop, it’s beautiful to see Collins once again rounding the familiar corners like the Followthrough, Gambon, and the Hammerhead. His first attempt is fast, but not fast enough—a 1:16.8. Collins notes the power and weight deficit are particularly painful on the long straights of the Dunsfold circuit.
At best, Collins gets down to a 1:15.8, seven tenths off the record he hoped to beat. His later laps are slower as he tries, without success, to wring more out of the Atom 4R. It’s perhaps unsurprising he couldn’t best the V8 Atom, given its 30% deficit in power to weight ratio.
That’s not to say the most famous former Stig left anything on the table—he’d wheeled the thing hard enough to cause some visible delamination or marring at the hub on one of the rear carbon wheels. “That’s the Followthrough, the load going into that rear wheel is massive” says Collins. “Not surprised.”
In any case, the Ariel Atom V8 500 didn’t have the ultimate lap record at Dunsfold anyway. At the end of Series 29, the Ferrari SF90 Stradale topped the charts at 1:11.3. Some cars went faster over the years, like the Renault R24 F1 car, but these were deemed ineligible for permanent residency on the Power Lap board by virtue of not being road legal.
The story doesn’t end here, though. The end of the video teases us with Collins behind the wheel of something altogether faster. Perhaps that will be enough for The Stig to regain his crown.
(Image credits: Drivetribe via YouTube Screenshot)
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Man, carbon fiber wheels really ain’t all that. Aside from cracking under stress, they aren’t a lot lighter than the really good titanium alloy stuff that’s out right now. Carbon Revolutions wheels for the GT350R/GT500 for example are 17lbs each, which is about the same as a 20″ BBS FI-R and you wouldn’t have to worry about tracking them hard.
Wasn’t that track supposed to be torn up for a housing tract? Whatever happened to that?
If the whole premise of taking back the record because old Stig thought he could beat new Stig’s time in the record-setting V8 Atom (old Stig feeling that there was a faster lap still in that car), why did he make the attempt in a less powerful, heavier new Atom?
It would have made more sense to compare old Stig’s lap to new Stig’s lap in the same V8 Atom. Surely someone owns a V8 Atom they could borrow.
Fantastic balls out fun! Good to see Ben and the old track. It was a sad Stig-ness that made me give up on the last iteration of Top Gear. “Stig took the Aluminium Shiny Bits 8V on a lap of the test track. You can see that lap online.” Online? That told me they didn’t care about their viewers. I turned it off and never watched another episode. It was tanking by then, anyway.
Ok, but what’s his time in a Suzuki Liana?
In his book Ben talk about meeting his hero, Nigel Mansell, when he was a guest on Top Gear and did a fast lap in the Liana laying down a very quick time.
Shortly thereafter and off camera Ben was determined to try and match the time Nigel laid down in the Liana and even see if he could beat it. It took a bunch of laps, more than Nigel had, for Ben to get close it to but he did beat it in the end.
The Top Gear team have really given Ben a hard time for outing himself but Ben’s ability to ‘talk cars’ to camera in an engaging way even when driving them to illustrate his points is actually one of the best I have ever seen.