Ben Collins: Racing Driver, Stunt Driver and the Man Behind The Stig

Ben Collins is a British racing driver best known as The Stig, the white-suited presenter of Top Gear from 2003 to 2010. His competitive record runs from junior single-seaters in 1995 to sportscars and stock cars, and it includes Le Mans and a long run of film stunt work.

Who is Ben Collins?

Ben Collins is a British driver born in Bristol on 13 February 1975. He has competed in motor racing since 1994 across Formula 3, Indy Lights, sportscars, GT racing and stock cars, and he runs a precision and stunt driving business alongside his competition work.

Collins spent his first decade in California, where his father worked for a distribution company. He was educated at Blundell's School and later studied law at the University of Exeter. He also spent around four years in the British Army Reserve, partly as a Special Forces driving instructor, and he worked as brand manager for the Scalextric model slot car division at Hornby.

Writing and broadcasting have run alongside the driving. He contributes regularly to Autosport magazine, testing the latest racing cars, and he has written for The Sunday Times. On television he fronted Sky Sports coverage of NASCAR and has appeared on Pulling Power on ITV1 and on driven on Channel 4.

From Formula 3 grids to the white suit on Top Gear, Collins built a career on driving that television and film could use.

How did Ben Collins start racing?

Collins began racing in 1994 and competed in Formula Vauxhall Junior in 1995, where he finished third overall with two wins and eight podiums. The following season he drove briefly in Formula Vauxhall, taking second place in the opening round at Donington Park.

His early results also included a second-place finish overall in the Formula Opel Winter Series, driving for Sir Jackie Stewart. Stewart spoke about him in Autosport magazine and suggested that people would see him in Formula One one day.

Martin Donnelly, for whom Collins raced in Formula Vauxhall, described him as an aggressive driver with natural speed.

Which single-seater series did Collins race in?

Collins moved into the British Formula 3 Championship in 1996 and remained in the category for several seasons. He finished eighth in the standings in 1997 with Fortec Motorsport and eighth again in 2000 with Carlin Motorsport. In 1999 he raced in the American Indy Lights series and finished thirteenth in the standings.

The 1997 season also brought an eighth-place finish at the Macau Grand Prix. Collins returned to British Formula 3 with Carlin in 2000 and finished second in the Masters of Formula 3 race at Zandvoort in the same year.

Engineering and development work ran alongside the racing. Collins was a test driver for Ascari during development of the Ascari A10 and undertook testing of Formula One cars.

How did Collins perform in sportscar racing?

Collins raced for Team Ascari in the FIA Sportscar Championship in 2001, winning at Donington Park with Werner Lupberger and finishing joint sixth in the standings. He later finished sixth at the 2002 12 Hours of Sebring for Ascari and rejoined the team for FIA GT3 European Championship racing in 2006.

In 2005 he raced a Porsche 996 GT3 in the British GT Championship, winning races before moving up to the FIA GT Championship with Ascari. There he led races and took several pole positions. Other records for the same period credit him with Embassy Racing, where he placed third in the series.

Stock car racing gave him a different kind of success. Driving for RML, Collins won the European oval stock car championship in 2003, and collecting six race wins along the way. He continued in that series in 2004 and had also signed with PDM Racing for selected Indy Racing League rounds, although that car never appeared on track.

Later seasons were more varied. In 2007 he was given a test in a NASCAR Cup Series car at Lakeland Speedway, working with the Red Bull Racing Team. In 2009 he joined the Kelly Racing and Jack Daniel's Racing V8 Supercars squad as an endurance driver, alongside Nathan Pretty.

The 2010 Le Mans Series season with RML AD Group brought his strongest sportscar results. At the 1000 km of Algarve he finished fourth overall and won the LMP2 class. At the 1000 km of Hungaroring the car finished fourth in both class and overall, and Collins stayed with the team for that round.

He also took part in the final meeting of the 2010 British Touring Car Championship for Motorbase Performance in a BMW. He finished 14th in the first race and 12th in the second, retired in the third, and did not return the following season. In 2021 he raced in the Britcar Praga Championship with Jay Morton and Angus Fender in car 85, nicknamed Blade, and in 2022 he took part in the inaugural Praga Cup.

Did Ben Collins race at Le Mans?

Yes. Collins made his debut at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2001 with Team Ascari. During a rain-soaked night he was the fastest driver in the race for about four hours.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans is run over a full day and night on the Circuit de la Sarthe. Ascari entered the event that year, and the team's sportscar programme was one of the places where Collins built his endurance experience.

What was Collins's role on Top Gear?

Collins co-presented Top Gear as The Stig from 2003 to 2010. His company supplied drivers and driving services to the BBC programme from December 2003, and he also appeared on the show as himself, including in a 24-hour Citroen 2CV race where his team finished thirteenth out of thirty-four cars.

In that 2CV event the team finished 24 laps behind the leaders, but Collins set the fastest lap. The 2CV race is one of the earliest examples of his on-screen work for the programme.

In 2004 Collins took part in a stunt with the parachutist Tim Carter, who jumped from a Cessna light aircraft and landed in an open-topped Mercedes driven by Collins. In the same year he appeared in the second episode of series five, racing a Lancer Evo VII and then a Bowler Wildcat against Tom Kirkman, a mountain boarding world champion.

Collins also played in a five-a-side football match in series six, using a fleet of Toyota Aygo cars alongside other touring car and stunt drivers. He later raced a Honda Civic Type-R against Jeremy Clarkson in series ten. In series seventeen he trained a team of amputee soldiers to drive a Bowler Wildcat for the Dakar Rally.

After a September 2006 accident involving Richard Hammond, a Health and Safety Executive report described Collins as a close adviser to the programme on high-performance driving. He had also prepared a briefing for Hammond before the event.

Was Ben Collins The Stig?

Collins was publicly identified as the driver behind the white-suited Stig, and in an interview in September 2010 Jeremy Clarkson confirmed that Collins had worked in the role. Collins had denied being The Stig for years, and most newspapers had refrained from naming him to keep the spirit of the programme intact.

The first major report came in January 2009, when The Daily Telegraph ran a story claiming that it had outed Collins as one of the people behind the white-suited Stig. The paper noted that Collins, from Bristol, had always denied the claim. The Times followed up with a piece describing the identity as an open secret in the motoring world for some years.

Two Bristol newspapers had reported the link a week before The Times, based on information that reportedly leaked from a local art gallery. The trail went back to September 2008, when Collins commissioned a Clifton business to produce a limited-edition run of poster prints. The signed image showed The Stig standing on a salt flat.

At the time James May said the identity had not been outed, and he noted that there had been speculation that more than one person played The Stig. The speculation did not end with the 2009 reports.

The autobiography dispute followed in 2010. The BBC sought a High Court injunction against a book, The Man in the White Suit, which was apparently written by Collins. The court quashed the injunction, which left the book free to appear on its planned release date of 16 September 2010 in the UK.

Clarkson's interview, recorded on 3 September and broadcast on 7 September 2010, confirmed the link and said that Collins had been dismissed from the show. Newspapers including The Guardian repeated those assertions in the days that followed.

Later references were pointed. The Christmas special of series fifteen called The Stig The Splitter and used his picture as drive-by shooting targets. In a July 2011 appearance with military amputees, Richard Hammond introduced Collins as the ex-Stig.

What stunt work did Collins do in films?

Collins works as a precision and stunt driver for film productions. His credits include the James Bond films Quantum of Solace, Skyfall and Spectre, plus blockbuster productions such as The Dark Knight Rises and Solo: A Star Wars Story.

His film career began in 2007 with National Treasure: Book of Secrets, where he doubled for Nicolas Cage and worked on some of the London high-speed scenes. In Quantum of Solace, released in 2008, he drove James Bond's Aston Martin DBS as the stunt double for Daniel Craig in the lead role.

Other credits include Jack Ryan and Mission Impossible. He also had a dual role as a stunt driver and actor in Ford v Ferrari, also released as Le Mans '66, where he played Denny Hulme. In the 2023 film Ferrari he played Stirling Moss.

Through his company, Collins Autosport Limited, he supplies precision and stunt driving to television and film. The company has also provided logistics and third-party liability insurance for track day events promoted by Top Gear magazine.

What has Collins done since leaving Top Gear?

After leaving Top Gear, Collins joined the presenting team of Fifth Gear in October 2010 and appeared in the Clarkson, Hammond and May Live touring show. He has also written books, served as a consultant on racing video games and has co-hosted the DriveTribe YouTube channel since 2022.

His Fifth Gear role was brief. He joined the Channel 5 programme in Series 18, took part in racing challenges on several occasions, and did not return for Series 19.

In the touring show, Collins performed a pre-recorded racing segment that mirrored his earlier work as The Stig. He wore an open-face helmet, and Clarkson introduced him with a playful nickname.

He has written two books. The later one is a driving guide titled How To Drive: The Ultimate Guide, which came out in 2014. The same year he was added to the Drivers Club of the newly formed Formula E series, although he did not compete in the inaugural 2014-15 season.

In racing games he served as a consultant during development of Project CARS and Project CARS 2. He also runs two YouTube channels of his own, Ben Collins Drives, which is automotive, and Ben Collins Gaming, which focuses on sim racing.

Since 2022 he has been a co-host of the DriveTribe channel, alongside the broadcaster Richard Hammond and his daughter Izzy Hammond. In 2012 he had also co-presented Automaniak for the Polish broadcaster TVN.

Ben Collins career summary