tommallett

Last night I switched on Top Gear for my weekly dose of Clarkson, May and Hammond. The programme has come in for a lot of criticism over the last few weeks, with not only Clarkson being criticized for his controversial comments, but the programme format and content coming under fire.

For the most part I look upon it as an hour’s light entertainment that just happens to utilize fast cars as its catalyst. When viewed like this I find that it serves its purpose quite admirably, so that is the stance that I take.

However, sometimes, when I take a step back and look at it from the viewpoint of the manufacturer I cringe slightly. The news section, which was woefully out of date, included the ‘lads’ take on Porsche’s new 911. A car that has been launched to universal praise, with every publication and journalist concluding that not only is the chassis a step forward and the interior a major improvement, but the electric power steering does little, if anything to dilute the experience. How all three of them can have come to the opposite conclusion without any attempt to qualify their comments is beyond me. I shall drive one again this weekend, but I expect to enjoy the experience as much as I have done previously.

Clarkson then moved onto his critique of Ferrari’s latest 4 seat GT car, the FF. I have driven the FF and it works beautifully, the four-wheel-drive system in particular being something that I praised extensively. I will not bore you with details of its inner workings, but it is worth knowing that it endows the FF with a feeling of security on British roads while still maintaining the delicate balance of a rear wheel drive car. On top of this, it is lovely at maneuvering speeds, with no evidence of the front wheels scrabbling as they do in other four-wheel-drive GT cars. The engine is also something to behold, in my view shaming the comparable unit from Lamborghini.

Anyway, back to Top Gear. The Swedes took six weeks to prepare the lake upon which the hairy-chested Ferrari was pitted against the newest and best Bentley. They repeatedly drilled holes into the lake below and flooded the ice each day so it would freeze thicker.

This all sounds like a lot of fun, but the question remains as to what it achieved? Well, it provided entertainment, so that is OK right? Normally I would agree, but in this particular case it has annoyed me slightly. The Bentley was fitted with Swedish Nokian Lappi studded tyres while the Ferrari was fitted with studded Pirelli Sotto Zero’s. The point being that the Bentley had tyres that were better suited to the test than the Ferrari. Knowing a little bit about how much difference tyres make it is no surprise that the Bentley was faster.

I would prefer to see an element of objectivity from the BBC’s most famous entertainment show. While I applaud the spectacle of watching two red-blooded GT cars dance around the ice I would also like to see them driven on normal roads where most people will drive them most of the time. I would also like to see Ferrari applauded for creating a four-wheel-drive system that works really rather well on those roads, and in particular I would like to see Ferrari sending cars to the Top Gear studio’s in the future.

In general, manufacturer press departments know precisely how good the cars they send out are. However, with Top Gear you are running the gauntlet, risking the throw of a dice. I have to ask whether it is worth it for car manufacturers. Sending a car to Top Gear carries a massive risk, with the worry being that your car, potentially a world beater in the case of Porsche’s new 911, can be dealt a savage blow in the search for a laugh. I am afraid that this annoys me more than a little bit, and if it annoys me it will annoy Ferrari’s PR department too.

The BBC's mission statement is to inform, educate and entertain. I believe it fails to deliver on two out of three fronts.