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The first episode of the thirteenth series of Top Gear aired on the 21st of June, 2009. It was presented by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May and The Stig. 7-time Formula 1 World Champion Michael Schumacher was the guest star.

Synopsis[]

After announcing that they are back following the Vietnam Special from six months prior, Jeremy informs the audience that since they left our screens in December, the whole world has "gone wrong". In order to reflect that "doom and despondency", as he describes it, Clarkson announces that they have made some changes to the series. We are then shown what to expect over the next 7 weeks, obviously disproving his previous statement.

Once joined by his fellow presenters, Richard confirms that he did indeed get that a bit wrong, stating that they had a list of what they were not to do that series, and did everything on the list regardless. James defends this decision by stating they don't do "doom and gloom", they do fun and games. Jeremy proceeds onwards with a letter, which he reads aloud to the audience. It says "Dear Top Gear, what would your program have been like if you were making it 60 years ago?" This then leads into the main segment.

Tonight...[]

  • Richard tries to start a motorbike...
  • James fill his car with petrol...
  • And [Jeremy] get[s] a British Rail sun tan.

Segments[]

Race to the North[]

Main article: Race to the North

This episode's main segment centred around a highly-publicised race which took place on the 25th of April that year, between James May in a vintage Jaguar XK120, Richard Hammond in a similarly vintage Vincent Black Shadow, and Jeremy Clarkson, notably bucking a trend which had followed every public transport race up to that point, using an LNER Peppercorn A1 class steam locomotive number 60163 Tornado.

Production[]

The main feature for this episode, the Race to the North, was filmed in secret on the 25th of April, 2009. James May won the race by a margin of no greater than 10 minutes, at approximately 3:15 PM. Jeremy Clarkson finished second at 3:26 PM.

As mentioned by director Richard Porter in his 2015 autobiography, there was one Formula 1 driver that producer Andy Wilman wanted more than any other; Michael Schumacher. Wilman's desire was to the extent that Porter described Wilman as someone who "would have crawled through a box of vinegar-sodden razor blades" to get Schumacher on the show. Unfortunately, due to Schumacher's ongoing relationship with Ferrari and the Fiat Group at large, he could not be seen behind the wheel of the Liana for contractual reasons, in return for the Ferrari FXX. This meant that no lap could be filmed, which would normally be disallowed but an arbitrary exception to this rule was made specifically for Schumacher. Schumacher arrived at the studio on the morning of the 17th of June, 2009 and didn't seem to be keen on what he was being asked to do; this turned out to be a wrong assumption on behalf of the studio crew.

Trivia[]

  • This is the first episode to replace the Top Gear logo during the end card with the BBC Productions logo. It would remain this way through to the end of the Clarkson, Hammond and May era.
  • The copyright date for this episode at the end erroneously referred to the year as "MMVIX", which is not a valid Roman numeral. It appears that whoever was responsible for this end card did not fully delete the "MMVIII" (2008) copyright date of the previous episode whilst changing it to MMIX (2009).
  • This mistake would persist into the second episode of the series before it was noticed.
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