This week saw the announcement of the new Top Gear cast and as the dust settles I feel it is time to get to know them a bit better before the series comes to our screens in May. Some of the cast you may know, some you may not. You may even know all of them (double points to you), in which case this article may not bring anything new to you. For me personally I knew of Chris Harris but I had never heard of Rory Reid. Let's start from the top and start with man everyone should be with familiar with now; Chris Evans.
Chris Evans
Evans started his career working in radio in Manchester for Piccadilly Radio in his teens before presenting Greater London Radio in erm, well, London. He broke into stardom after appearing on Channel 4's Big Breakfast which provided him a springboard that enabled him to present on Radio 1 and also TFI Friday. 2000 saw him top the list of The Sunday Times' Rich List as the highest paid entertainer. He took over from the late Terry Wogan to present the drivetime show in 2005 before moving to his own show in 2010 and also working on The One Show. In 2015 after the famous 'fracas' he was brought in as a new host of Top Gear, signing a 3 year deal. Chris Evans is a self obsessed car fanatic and has a large collection of cars including the Ferrari 250 GT California.
Matt LeBlanc
It came as great surprise to everyone when Matt LeBlanc was added to the Top Gear roster at the
start of February. LeBlanc was the fastest star in a reasonably priced car when the last format of Top Gear came to a grinding halt. He is best known for his role as Joey in Friends and also for his role as erm, himself in the BBC programme Episodes. I haven't watched either of those so I cannot pass any judgement on that I'm afraid. Will LeBlanc be able to build chemistry with the other presenters and fit seamlessly into the TG set up? That will be interesting to see.
Sabine Schmitz
Known as Queen of the Nurburgring, Schmitz is a professional racing driver for BMW and Porsche. She reckons she has driven around the vast German track more than 30,000 times which is quite a feat as the track is 13 miles long! Like Evans and LeBlanc she has appeared on Top Gear before where she drove a Ford Transit around the aforementioned track in spectacular fashion. She also featured on the cracking Britain v Germany VT where she raced a mini against Jeremy Clarkson and drove a double decker car against the Top Gear crew. Going back to the Nurburgring, she piloted the BMW M5 'Ring Taxi' (until 2011) which enable passengers to experience a trilling ride around the 73 corner behemoth. I am looking forward to seeing what she brings to the programme.
Eddie Jordan
Eddie Jordan is well known in the motorsport world and a respected figure within it. He managed the likes of Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill at his time at Jordan Grand Prix team which he founded in 1991. He has also worked with great drivers such as Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell in his career which is not a bad thing I guess. He left F1 in 2005 before returning in 2009 to join the BBC F1 coverage team providing insight analysis. In 2012 he received an honorary OBE for services to charity and Motorsport racing.
Chris Harris
Chris Harris is a motoring journalist who cut his teeth working at Autocar as a general dogsbody before being promoted to Road Test Editor which he maintained until he left in 2008. He had a short stint at a web based publication called Driver Republic which did not go to plan and was disbanded in 2009, a year after it's launch. Harris then went onto write for EVO magazine aswell as setting up this own YouTube channel Chris Harris On Cars or CHOC for short. Harris has dabbled in motor racing too, having competed in the 24 Hours Nurburgring for Porsche and Aston Martin in 2010 and 2015 respectively.
Rory Reid
Now, this is the chap that I regret to say I knew nothing about. That's fine though as he knows nothing about me either so we're even. I guess.... Reid is a motoring journalist and editor-in-chief at Recombu.com. He has also written for CNET UK and appeared on the YouTube channel Fast, Furious and Funny. He is also interested in technology and has appeared on Sky 1's Gadget Geeks and Radio Five Live's Saturday Section on which he was a technology journalist. He was presenter who climbed the pile to win the public auditions.
The Stig
Some say...he/she/it is the last person on this list. And they'd be right. The enigmatic racing driver will remain (as expected) as part of the new format of Top Gear but it will be interesting if they change how they use this character.
So there we have it, Top Gear's magnificent Seven. The new series will be on our screens on May 8th. I'm looking forward to seeing what the finished product will be.