How good is The Stig?

2 September 2010

Ben Collins hit the headlines this week as his identity as Top Gear's tame racing driver 'The Stig' was further highlighted by tabloid newspaper revelations.

But while the 33-year-old Brit (or his alter-ego at least) is more well-known than most of the drivers on the Castrol Rankings, he lies only 768th himself.

Collins has had a varied career that began in 1994 and has included victories in British Formula 3 and GT and the FIA Sportscar Championship.

While his only championship title came in the NASCAR-imitating Days of Thunder Series in 2003 (in a car backed by the Territorial Army), Collins has generally run at the sharp end, regardless of what category he was in.

Collins lay 1756th in the Castrol Rankings at the start of the year with just two races behind him in 2009, a pair of shared drives in the Australian V8 Supercar enduros at Phillip Island and Bathurst.

The 2010 season has been a good one though, even if he didn't have his first race until July. That drive came in the Le Mans Series as he joined the RML squad to drive its Lola-HPD at the Algarve circuit (pictured).

 

An LMP2 class victory on his first appearance for the team - and fourth place overall - gained him over 900 places and he and co-drivers Mike Newton and Tommy Erdos followed that up with another fourth places (in LMP2 and overall) at the Hungaroring.

 

Those results have moved him up to his current position of 768th, and he is certain to move up even further following next weekend's Le Mans Series finale, the AUTOSPORT 1000km at Silverstone.

The Castrol EDGE Rankings are based on drivers' measurable performance over the last 12 months, including everything from their grid position to fastest laps. For further information on how the Castrol EDGE Rankings scores are calculated, click here.