And the Stig is...

[rocknrollstar]

I knew it... It was either going to be my grandad or a pro racing driver Too tall for Daemon Hill, my first guess.

 

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Schumacher 'revealed' as the Stig

[Little-Miss]

Im gutted, i enjoyed all the "some say....." intros.....

[featured_spectre]

trouble is, if you look at the stig in various shots, sometimes he is James Mays height, other times he is Clarksons height (there being a 4 inch diff in height if i am not mistaken). IMO I think they got schumi in to play the role and stop the guessing.

[mossj]

didn't white stig start when shoooomacer was still racing in the grand prix?

[DrPerceptron]

Filming is on a Wednesday... it's totally plausible...

 

But the stig is generally much 'larger' than Micheal and taller quite often.

 

Who knows though.... I don't believe it (I didn't believe Micheal had a sense of humour though!)

[russdev]

trouble is, if you look at the stig in various shots, sometimes he is James Mays height, other times he is Clarksons height (there being a 4 inch diff in height if i am not mistaken). IMO I think they got schumi in to play the role and stop the guessing.

 

Thing is here is sometimes person driving is not the stig whole reason they had someone in a helmet is that sometimes they car makers won't let anyone but their driver drive the car specially if a new car.

 

So the whole persona of the stig was invented.

 

Do I think it is schumi not sure doubt it but maybe we are wrong.

 

Russ

[leco]

Perhaps it's going to be one of those "... and this week the Stig is mostly ..." fill in this week's guest Stig.

[Andrew_C]

Someone on another forum who works in television land has said the Clarkson let the MS news slip during filming some time back, so it seems plausible. I was expecting a Touring Car or Rally driver; I wasn't expecting Shumi at all. And I too wonder about the scheduling involved when he was racing.

[Kipling]

I don’t think there’s ever been just one stig, he’ll have been played by a plethora of drivers.

I think that was the whole idea of him being a mystery in the first place. He’s the TV version of old Lloyd Mangram

[Little-Miss]

Actually, im starting to think what Russ said sounds about right...so they have the BBC Stig (Schumi?!) who they use when they're messing around and then they have all the other stigs that are used when testing certain cars....

[IrritableTech]

The papers decided to out the stig earlier this year. I didn't read the story because I didn't really want to know who it was.

 

The top gear team were quite annoyed. The media have known who the stig was for ages, but they would all play along with the joke.

 

Revealing Schui as the stig is their way to have a dig at the media. I bet another driver is revealed as the stig next week as well.

[TechMonkey]

Considering the blurb before the FXX was about how Ferrari only let you borrow the car you have bought & how much they cost I have a strong feeling that he was revealed this week because MS is either the owner of that car or Ferrari lent him out with the car. Someone was saying he is the only driver allowed to keep his car. So that sounds plausible. Nice to think it is 2 fingers up at the papers though

[silver]

No, don't believe it! Can't see a man with an ego that size being happy to be invisible, week after week. Also, he must be far too busy doing millionairy-things to do Top Gear anyway!

There was an interview in one of the Sundays with someone or other and he said that there are 4 Stigs and he had been one of them - seems much more likely to me

[SteveBentley]

I took the end part with "Schumaker" doing a lap in the reasonably priced car and cocking it up big time and Clarkson's "maybe he isn't the Stig after all" comment as a fairly sure way of saying that they were messing about and he isn't really the Stig.

 

I think the "there's more than one Stig" suggestion is a good shout.

[speckytecky]

didn't white stig start when shoooomacer was still racing in the grand prix?

 

Your right!

 

So unless Shoomioe found some spare time of the F1 circuit it had to be someone else at the beginning.

[UnknownStuntman]

Don't think Schumacher is the usual stig at all but feel it is more than likely that it was Schumacher donning the outfit for the lap in the Ferrari FXX

[K.C.Leblanc]

Thing is here is sometimes person driving is not the stig whole reason they had someone in a helmet is that sometimes they car makers won't let anyone but their driver drive the car specially if a new car.

 

So the whole persona of the stig was invented.

 

Do I think it is schumi not sure doubt it but maybe we are wrong.

 

Russ

 

I would agree with that. I know someone who's witnessed the stig dehelmeting and it was Jason Plato.

 

I doubt Schumi is the perminant Stig. He'd be listening to Krauftwerk everyweek.

[Trapper]

The FFX that was driven around the test track is Schumacher's own car, it was a retirement gift from Ferrari.

 

Frankly it was a dig at the media who had been speculating on this. Schumacher was simply this weeks guest, and they thought it would be a laugh to unveil him as the Stig.

 

The Stig is in all probability different people. Whoever is available for that show, whoever the manufacturers want to drive their car etc.

 

All a bit of fun really.

[dezt]

Didn't white Stig jump off a ski jump on a snow mobile once? Can't see Schumacher doing that somehow.....

[Joh619]

The second "The Stig" appeared on the screen this week, me and my boyfriend both said "that's not the old stig". He was blatently a whole load shorter than the one they had last series.

[russdev]

Yes certainly a racing driver from Bristol born in 1975 is one as he was named in Hammond health and safety report.

[heybatesy]

The original Stig was Perry McCathy but he blew it when he revealed it was him in his biography.

 

Shumi was used just for this one as he was the guest and as others have pointed out Ferrari are quite protective of the FXX's. It was fairly obvious when it went 7 seconds quicker than the Gumpert that somebody 'special' rather than the normal Stig was driving.

 

The normal Stig has been one person since McCathy and is a fairly well known 'antipodean' GT driver...

[Little-Miss]

Got us talking again though hasnt it.....

[Fivetwelve]

No way it's schoomie - that's just who they want you to believe as they wanted him to race his FXX round the test track.

 

My money is on Ben Collins. Has anyone seen that shot of The Stig's eyes through the helmet, caught out in a photo shoot? Definitely not Shoe-makers eyes.

 

Edit: Well of course there's a plethora of Stigs, but I'd say Ben Collins does all the "test track" and hot lap time stuff, because being a touring car driver, he'll be most suited to that sort of driving with road cars.

Edited June 22, 2009 by Fivetwelve

[OverWorked]

Yes certainly a racing driver from Bristol born in 1975 is one as he was named in Hammond health and safety report.

 

Ben Collins. Among other sources. It's also likely that there are severla stig players, for various reasons. It was someone else until he outed himself in his biography a few years ago.

 

Not that I'd even heard of Ben Collins until this week. I don't know why I'm replying th this thread... I don't even watch the show.