Check out some of my new films for Volvo. Great fun driving 1 off ‘priceless’ prototypes…no pressure then!! Enjoy.

Ben’s Autobiography ‘The Man In The White Suit’ is available at Amazon UK, Waterstones, Blackwell’s and Amazon USA

Amazon.co.uk

Waterstones

Blackwell

Amazon.com

Great to see the book now in Polish. Here is a link to the launch article in Cars magazine.

What’s the fastest I’ve ever driven?

Just ask.

During the Silverstone race weekend I will be filmed answering as many of your questions as possible. Simply type your questions into the comments box below and the best ones will be filmed.

Good Luck.

Ben.

“It was great to catch up with the lads from Top Gear again and it meant a lot to me personally to put the events of last year into perspective. At the end of the day we all share a huge respect for these brave soldiers in their bid to compete in the Dakar rally; so it was well worth risking a right hook from Clarkson or being mauled by the Top Gear dog when my old boss Andy Wilman invited me back. It was nice seeing Hammond without his target pistol too, even if he didn’t recognize me without my white suit…

The film we did in Wales involved me coaching a group of young army veterans to handle the brute power of their QT Wildcat rally 4x4s. The soldiers’ acute injuries made it extremely difficult for them to control the machines as they flew through the air at high speed, let alone sliding through rocky gate posts and down vertical slopes. Somehow they did it and the footage of their feats makes for unbelievable viewing. It was a rare privilege to ride with these guys and witness their perseverance against all odds, without a doubt the most inspirational journey of my life.”

Find out more:

www.race2recovery.co.uk/

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It takes more than a couple of blown turbos to wipe the smile off Mike Newton’s face, and he shared the team’s positive outlook on a race in which the final result hid a very encouraging discovery. RML AD Group’s preparations for the Imola 6 Hours had not only been disrupted by the Italian weather, but also carried the legacy of the serious accident sustained at Spa. That had destroyed the team’s original HPD ARX-01d chassis, and the squad arrived for Round 3 of the 2011 Le Mans Series after very limited running with the LMS homologated package.

In a bold move on Saturday, between final practice and qualifying, the team made some radical changes to the car’s set-up, and it paid dividends – not in outright pace for qualifying, where the car’s lack of horsepower continues to restrict top-end performance – but in creating a car that was perfectly suited to racing the Imola track.

“We knew from the times all three drivers set in warm-up that we’d found the right balance for this circuit,” said Phil Barker, Team Manager at RML. “In race trim, Ben was straight down to a 1:42 on his first lap, and a 45 from Mike was very encouraging. We had planned on triple-stinting the tyres in the race, and that would have gained us perhaps thirty or forty seconds over the first three stints. It could have made all the difference. Unfortunately, towards the end of the second stint we had the first turbo problem, and that destroyed our strategy.” In a carbon-copy of the problems encountered at Le Mans, the car suffered two turbo failures. The first cost the car twelve minutes, but the second was replaced in a little over ten. Although impressive achievements in themselves, the delay dropped the RML AD Group #36 out of contention.

“After that it was obvious that we were only going to end up where we could, courtesy of whatever befell everyone else,” admitted Mike Newton, CEO of AD Group. “Under those circumstances, I felt I could drive the car like I’d stolen it! I learned more about the car in two stints here than I feel I’ve learned all season. My run just turned into an uninhibited test, and it was excellent. Tommy and the guys did such an excellent job of setting up the car for this circuit, and it was a delight to drive. I really enjoyed myself!” Mike had set himself a target of running a one-forty-four, and he achieved this several times. “Mike came through with some simply remarkable times,” admitted Phil. “He just took to this place so well, and did a great job.”

“It was great that we’d got the car that was so well balanced for the race, and we were all comfortable with the handling,” said Ben Collins, who drove the final stint and endured the second turbo failure. “If we’d found that set-up earlier in the week, then we could have been so much further forwards, but the car felt great. This track is brutal, but the car took it really well, and I loved every minute.”

“The car was excellent on race pace, and it was very encouraging to see how competitive we were against Strakka,” said Tommy Erdos. “We can only really compare our performance against them, and there was only three-tenths between the fastest laps of each car. Without the turbo issues, which prevented us making the most of the tyre strategy that we’d planned, we could have hoped for a good result. It is great credit to Dunlop that they came through with a tyre that offered us the opportunity to triple-stint with confidence, and it’s really unfortunate that we weren’t able to exploit that potential.”

“We witnessed once again how adversity brings out the best in people,” said Pauline Norstrom, Director of Motorsport and Marketing at AD Group. “It was a treat to watch the race team working with such professionalism as they always do, while under so much pressure, yet overcoming the problems to get the car back into the race at breakneck speed. They brought the car home, albeit in eleventh place, and it was just a great effort. It reinforces our philosophy of valuing the effectiveness of teamwork and, as the saying goes, ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again’, and we’re determined to keep on trying.”

The next opportunity to display that resolve will come in the next round of the Le Mans Series at Silverstone on September 11th.

Everyone at RML AD Group knows what it feels like to win atLe Mans. The team has taken the LMP2 title twice in recent years, and they have experienced the rich swell of emotion, pride and satisfaction that comes with seeing their own drivers standing on that famous podium. On Sunday, in the 79th edition of the 24 Hours, the team’s trio of Mike Newton, Thomas Erdos and Ben Collins, battled through to fourth in the LMP2, yet it felt almost as good as winning all over again.

RML AD Group came to Le Mans with high hopes but realistic aspirations. Just four weeks previously the team had seen their Honda Performance Development HPD ARX-01d almost destroyed in a huge accident at Spa. Team Manager Phil Barker and his crew overcame a logistical minefield to source the replacement parts and rebuild the car in time. “In practice and qualifying we concentrated on establishing the best possible set-up for the race itself.”said Mike Newton, CEO of AD Group. “We recognise that we have disadvantages, under the current regulations, of extra ballast, a lower power output and a restricted refuelling flow, so being confident that we could be competitive in the race was vitally important. For that reason we never went for a qualifying time, although I’m pleased to have gone quicker in the race than I did in practice, and Ben wrung out a time that was well beyond anything we’d expected to achieve.”

Thomas Erdos took the rolling start from 8th on the LMP2 grid, and had picked up a couple of places before the first of two horrific accidents brought out the safety cars. This initial period lasted an hour. The second, late on Saturday evening, lasted more than two, and Tommy was in the car for both. He completed a triple-stint to open the race, handing over to Mike at almost three hours distance. Mike completed his own two-hour stint, holding fifth in class throughout, before handing on to Ben, who maintained the momentum. Tommy resumed driving duties at nine-thirty, but had only been in the car minutes when one of the car’s two turbos failed.

“We suspected the turbos might be a weak point, and one of our mechanics, Adam Hughes, came up with a solution,” explained Phil Barker, Team Manager at RML. “It normally takes about an hour to replace a turbo unit, but Adam designed a quick-fix system that allowed us to complete the work in less than 20 minutes. In fact, the first turbo cost us 17 minutes, and when we had to replace a second, six hours later that was installed in 13 minutes.” Luckily, the second turbo lasted for the remainder of the race.

Although much quicker than the alternative hour, the turbo replacement still sent the #36 HPD spiralling down the order. It finally emerged in 29th position overall. Tommy’s hopes of regaining lost ground went when a second major accident resulted in the day’s longest safety car deployment of two hours twenty minutes. Mike took over at one in the morning, completing a single stint that lifted the car to 23rd before passing the baton to Ben. The second turbo failure, more quickly repaired, cost fewer places, and a steady recovery ensued – despite a succession of punctures.

By dawn on Sunday the #36 HPD had risen to 22nd, and then to 18th as the race entered its 20th hour. Tommy hauled the car up to 15th by midday, where it remained until the final minutes of the race. In difficult conditions, with changeable weather, tired cars and drivers, and the emotional intensity of a race like Le Mans, Ben Collins took the final stint. He set some of the car’s fastest laps to turn around a two minute deficit on the #51 AF Corse GT to take 13th overall, and then 12th by passing the #49 Oak Racing Pescarolo on the final lap, and thereby clinching 4th in LMP2.

Thomas Erdos faced some of the most demanding stints in the team’s 24 hours, ranging from all those hours behind the safety car, five punctures, and a disagreement with a patch of oil, to some of the worst of the weather. “It seemed that every time I got into the car, the safety car came out, and that’s not really my idea of racing!” he said. “Even so, I’m really delighted by the end result. We’ve won this race twice, and finished third last year, but considering the issues we’ve had, and the penalties we’ve overcome, fourth in 2011 seems an incredible result. The team’s efforts came to the fore and the guys did a great job. Ben also did a great job of clawing back so much of the lost time.”

This one nearly got the better of me, admitted Phil Barker. “I don’t usually get quite so emotional, but when you see the delight on the faces of these guys, who’ve all worked so hard to achieve this finish, you can’t help but feel pleased for them and emotional yourself.

“This has been my first finish at Le Mans, so I suppose it’s third time lucky,” said Ben Collins, the newest recruit to the driver line-up and the one-time Top Gear Stig. “I was blessed with smooth, free-running stints and I loved it. I feel honoured to work with these guys, and very grateful for the way they kept us going. To have finished is just unbelievable. On the last lap someone on the Mulsanne waved a chequered flag at me, and that made me realise what we were about to achieve. The emotion of crossing the line at Le Mans is like nothing else, amplified by the lack of sleep perhaps, and it’s just a fantastic feeling – more so than any other race I’ve ever done. What made this result so memorable was the scale of the work that the team accomplished, to bring a new car online at the 11th hour; one that ran without a single operational fault. What a crew.”

“We were all inspired by the sheer determination of the whole team this weekend and the way they pulled together to overcome every challenge of the race,” said Pauline Norstrom, Board Director and Director of Motorsport and Marketing at AD Group. “Meticulous planning and anticipation ensured that there was an engineered solution already prepared to help master each situation. Bringing the car home fourth in class, 12th overall, feels like a fantastic achievement accomplished in the face of adversity.”

“We were well prepared for the possibility of turbo failures, but even so, the time we lost to those issues might have put us on the podium, perhaps as high as second,” said Ray Mallock, Founder and CEO of RML, “but it is such an achievement simply to get to the finish at Le Mans. It’s so satisfying to see the chequered flag and know you’ve got to the end. Once again the Le Mans 24 Hours has shown us why it is such an emotional and charismatic event. This was a great effort by the team, and we will be back!”

The team’s next race is the 1000 Kilometres of Imola on 3rd July

The first round of the 2011 Le Mans Series saw RML AD Group’s HPD ARX-01d cross the line eleventh overall, seventh in class, to secure points towards the championship despite issues that threatened to overshadow the race weekend.

Having encountered an intermittent electrical fault in qualifying, Thomas Erdos was required to start the six-hour race from the back of the grid. He skilfully negotiated the chaos of a catastrophic start, which saw several cars eliminated from the race even before they’d crossed the line, and began a spirited fight-back through the field. Weaving his way through the GT cars, Erdos had worked through from 33rd to 14th overall inside 20 minutes. He reached the top ten after forty minutes, and by the end of an impressive triple-stint the Brazilian had reached sixth overall, fourth in LMP2.

Mike Newton completed the middle stints of the race, holding position and working through a well-timed tactical pitstop under a safety car to hand over to Ben Collins for the final ninety minutes. Damage to the car’s front louvres, caused by debris thrown up from the track, left Ben coping with a challenging handling issue, and the team had to bring the HPD in for repairs. The damage was made good remarkably quickly but the delay cost time, and Ben crossed the line 11th overall, 7th in class.

“We’re disappointed by the way the weekend has played out, with all the politics associated with the car’s relative performance, but we’re pleased to have run the car for the very first time and brought it home,” said Phil Barker, Team Manager at RML. “The only issue we encountered was one with the louvres, which we had to fit and fix. Our thanks go to Strakka Racing for lending us the necessary spares, because without them we couldn’t have finished the race. I appreciate their help, and we have collected some valuable points as a result.”

“I’ve never worked so hard in my life for P7!” said Thomas Erdos. “I’m very happy with the reliability of the car and, to be honest, I had some fun through the traffic, but I could pick out 100 situations where there could have been serious contact. There was huge potential for an accident, and an element of frustration. It’s not the way to go racing, and the ACO really does have to address the issue of performance balancing urgently. There will be a serious accident if this isn’t sorted.”

“Being the slowest in a straight line makes for a very strange experience,” admitted Ben Collins. “Even so, this has been a better start to the year than we might have expected yesterday. I just hope we can get the performance adjustment we deserve so that we can compete fairly with the rest in LMP2.” The two HPD chassis are currently carrying more weight than their competitors and the HPD V6 twin-turbo engines are governed by smaller restrictors, giving a power disadvantage believed now to be in excess of 50 horsepower.

“I didn’t get bottled up behind any GTs, which was something I’d been concerned about before the race,” conceded Mike Newton, CEO of AD Group, and co-driver in the #36 HPD-ARX-01d. “I had a good clean run, without any incidents, but this isn’t my idea of motor racing,” he added.

Speaking on behalf of AD Group, the team’s principal sponsors, Pauline Norstrom, AD Group’s Motorsport and Marketing Director, said: “Despite all the challenges, and starting from the back of the grid, the team brought the car home with points. It may not be the result we might have hoped for, but it has been a strong reflection on the determination and resourcefulness of the team. We appreciate their efforts, and credit to all three drivers for staying out of trouble in the scramble through the GT class.”

“The last few weeks have been a voyage of discovery, but the car has been exceptional and lived up to all our expectations,” said Phil Barker. “We only took delivery of the parts on February 14th, and faced a huge task in preparing the car for this weekend. We’ve achieved so much in such a very short space of time, and that has been a great effort by everyone in the team. I have huge admiration for every single one of them. It is just disappointing that we haven’t been able to show the true potential of the car. The mandatory two races have now been run, here and at Sebring, so we just hope that the ACO will now be true to their word and reassess the situation.”

The team will now be looking ahead to the official Le Mans Test, which takes place on April 24th.

Gaëlec Simard with team, plus presenters Gemma Atkinson and Ben ‘The Stig’ Collins, with their BAFTA for exhilarating action adventure Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. (Pic: BAFTA/Steve Butler)

More information here.

Speaking & Corporate Events contact:
Alice Saunders at LAW with bookings enquiries
Tel: 0207 471 7904
alice@lawagency.co.uk

Ben Collins
Better known as The Stig from BBC’s internationally acclaimed Top Gear program, Ben Collins has coached hundreds of celebrities such as Tom Cruise around the race track, organised high voltage car chases and tested hundreds of priceless cars to the brink. Ben holds many credits in his own name: A Professional Le Mans Racecar Driver, Bestselling Author, TV Presenter, World Record Breaker and Hollywood Stunt Driver.

As the Stig, Ben Collins was the benchmark of speed against which all other drivers set themselves, and the man that everyone from Formula One World Champion Nigel Mansell to Jenson Button tried and failed to beat. He has raced successfully in almost every class imaginable, from Formula 3 and Le Mans 24 Hour competition to American Stock Car Racing. Jackie Stewart watching a young Ben win a Formula 3 race, was blown away, “When you see the likes of Ben Collins in Formula One, remember you saw them here first.” It was, however, the moment Ben disguised himself in white suit and helmet, that he became instantly recognisable.

Ben has put every known supercar to the test, racing the world’s greatest cars, from the Bugatti Veyron and Ferrari 430 Scuderia to a London Routemaster. From the anonymity of his white helmet he taught some of the world’s most famous stars how to lay down a fast racing lap, managed to catch a parachutist in his moving car and coached a blind man how to take on a chicane. Few others, if any, have taken on a British Army tank division in a Mitsubishi Evo 7.

Ben is most famous for his role as the Stig, but he is respected as a focussed and successful businessman. Collins Autosport has supplied precision drivers for Top Gear and Hollywood, with Ben commanding James Bond’s Aston Martin in the last James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, and performing as Nic Cage’s driving stunt double. Ben’s company offers the ultimate driving challenge in some of the fastest cars on the planet to an international clientele who are looking to take driving to a whole new level

As a journalist, Ben writes for Autosport and The Sunday Times and is currently a presenter for Channel Five’s ‘Fifth Gear’ program.

Ben’s bestselling memoir, The Man in the White Suit (The Stig, Le Mans, The Fast Lane and Me) charts a life of passion, commitment and a determination to succeed in the highly competitive adrenalin fuelled world of motor sports. .

His presenting approach.
Motivational
Ben is an expert on driving and the mental aptitude required to be a professional in this highly competitive environment. He provides insights on what it feels like to race. A high pressure environment where split-second decisions determine success or failure, and total focus is the key to unlocking potential: skills that can be applied to the challenges of the workplace.

“As is so often the case in every day life, it’s the little things that count in motor racing. To go that fraction faster through a corner than the next man means stretching yourself and believing it’s possible when everything is telling you it’s physically impossible.”

Team work
The Driver in a racing team sits at the hub of a group of experts channelling their unique skills towards the goal of winning. Every individual is linked by that shared vision and invariably it is the weakest link in the chain that determines whether the Team will win or lose. Words like camaraderie, commitment, motivation, team-work and trust find their true value when a racing car slides into the hands of the pit crew, at 3 o’clock in the morning of a 24-hour race, for a tyre change and a refuel during a monsoon.

Inspiration
Ben’s career was forged by competition and the search for inner strength. The Stig epitomised a superhuman quality that was effortless and matter of fact, but the man behind the mask had to dig very deep for every victory, every lap time and every inch of tarmac. His story is not one of indomitable victory, but of learning to overcome setbacks, of personal risk taking and survival, and a little luck too.

Sponsorship
Ben understands the complexities of the business world as well as the racing, His company continues to thrive under his leadership and provide ever greater spectacles of driving. He understands the importance of working as a team, having done so all his life- in the army and in the pit lanes and has effectively applied this to the world of commerce.

Motor racing is a sport that thrives on new technology and is pioneering the energy systems of the future that will replace the use of carbon-based fuels. ‘High tech’ requires investment and Ben works continuously with the media and focused organisations to deliver funding for his racing programs. In the modern media landscape of ‘here today, forgotten tomorrow’, racing provides a visceral platform for corporate communication with Ben delivering at the sharp end on and off the track.

Anecdotal
Ben’s spent his early days as part of a local swimming team, where by the age of 7, he was swimming nationally at junior Olympic standard. In later life he passed selection to join an Elite Airborne regiment of highly-trained Army reservists, where he also served as an evasive driving instructor. And of course his hugely successful career in motorsports, covering his experiences of winning in Formula Three, NASCAR and Le Mans where he and his Team recently captured the Championship Title.

Ben is in high demand as a speaker due to his unique career and continuing success. His entertaining anecdotes and tales of incredible stunts make for a truly inspirational talk. At its core is a story of strong commitment and an iron will that has determined Ben’s position as a world class performer.

Contact:
Alice Saunders at LAW with bookings enquiries.
Tel: 02074717904
Email: Alice@lawagency.co.uk

 
About RML
The RML Group comprises six divisions; Motorsport, Automotive, Engines, Historic, Events and X-Pro. Based in Northamptonshire, England the company’s 4,300 square metre facility includes design, development, manufacturing and operational support for international race/rally programmes and automotive engineering projects including performance engine development.
 
Since its formation in 1984 RML has achieved success in a diverse range of motorsport categories including GT/sportscars, touring cars, rally cars, single seaters and oval speedway cars. RML currently holds the LMP2 team and drivers titles in the Le Mans Series with Mike Newton and Thomas Erdos. RML also secured the 2010 British Touring Car Championship drivers title with Chevrolet and Jason Plato and the World Touring Car Championship manufacturers and drivers titles with Chevrolet and Yvan Muller.
 
About AD Group
AD Group was formed in 1997. AD’s primary objective is to develop and bring to market new CCTV technologies. One of the first companies to embrace the concept of video over IP (Internet Protocol), AD’s interests now include CCTV for aircraft, transport, smoke detection, together with camera technology and digital video recorders and multiplexers.
 
About Honda Performance Development (HPD)
Honda Performance Development is the Honda racing company within North America. Founded in 1993, and located in Santa Clarita, California, HPD is the technical operations centre for Honda high-performance racing cars and engines. In an open-wheel racing history that dates to 1994, Honda has recorded 166 race victories, 12 drivers’ championships, 10 Manufacturers’ Championships and seven Indianapolis 500 victories. HPD sportscar chassis, developed in association with Wirth Research of Banbury, Oxfordshire, have dominated LM prototype competition in the American Le Mans Series for the past two seasons, and in 2010, recorded a class win and the highest-ever LMP2 finish in the Le Mans 24 Hours, as well as the first outright endurance victory by an LMP2 chassis in Europe. In addition to its sports-car efforts and its role as single engine supplier to the IndyCar Series, HPD is active in a growing number of grassroots motorsports activities.