Freddie, Chris and Paddy are back with Series 33 of Top Gear, where their global celebration all things automotive show no signs of slowing down.

There’s a pick-up pilgrimage across Thailand, discovering the amazing nation that loves these trucks more than anywhere else in the world; there’s a supercar showdown in the Alps, featuring the all-new Ferrari 296 GTB, the all-new Porsche Cayman GT4 RS, and the astonishing, multi-million pound four-wheeled work of art that is the Pagani Huayra BC.

At the opposite end of the market, the boys have been to Paris, testing the very latest in affordable electric microcars, while closer to home they’ve had a thorough - and thoroughly outrageous – look at the best way to get into the delivery driver game on a budget.

Elsewhere, the show is shining a spotlight on budding young racers that don’t have the means compete in the high-stakes world of motorsport, putting together a team of talented young drivers and mechanics for a once in a lifetime opportunity.

With all this and more, the new series of Top Gear continues to set the benchmark for high-octane excitement and entertainment.

Do you have a favourite moment/trip from the series? I think the most memorable trip would be to Thailand because it was the most ambitious and it was nice to go abroad again as we hadn’t done that for a long time. During the trip we did Hmong kart racing, which involves racing wooden go-karts down a hill...which was a silly idea and resulted in all sorts of things going wrong! But Top Gear is at its best when things are going wrong, so I remember that well.

It was also great to go to Germany and Austria because we spent a lot time of time going further afield. We haven’t really explored Europe too much and there are some beautiful roads and the Austrian/German border area is just stunning, so I really enjoyed that as well.

What was it like delving into Thailand’s car culture? It makes you realise how the motor car is ubiquitous around the world but every culture seems to interact with it differently, and in Thailand their culture is all about pickup trucks. They love pickup trucks - just the number of them on the road is amazing. People even choose a pickup truck as a kind of family car.  They are absolutely everywhere and we definitely celebrated that. Our idea was to take our twist on a pickup truck and we did some pickup racing. On Top Gear we like to go to a place and be inquisitive about their car culture and celebrate it, and that’s what we did in Thailand.  

You get to drive some serious supercars this series. What car were you most excited about driving? Did you have a favourite? I think the Rimac Nevera is the one that I have waited to drive for such a long time. I’ve known about the creator of the car Mate Rimac for many years, his story is inspirational and he is a very very clever man. His technology which looks very extreme in this car with 1900 horse power will benefit you in some point in the next 15 years, it’s what happens. I anticipated it as something that would blow my mind in its performance, but it exceeds all expectations.

After 33 series, why do you think Top Gear remains so popular? It’s quite simple really, the two elements: three people that have very different backgrounds but have some sort of quirky chemistry (and I don’t understand how that works, but it always has), and the motor car.   The star of Top Gear is not us, it’s the car, and human beings have a very complicated relationship with the motor car changing rapidly at the moment but it’s still an amazing object to explore and it’s an amazing object as a prism through which to view society and people. And it’s also a very filmic thing!  If you are making television or films, you want something that is exciting, that elicits emotion, that sounds good and looks good. It’s like the motor car was designed to be filmed because they look good, they sound good and they make people react.

Do you have a favourite moment/trip from the series?

For me, the biggest but also the most enjoyable challenge I had was the F1 stock car racing. I got a chance to race in a sport that I didn’t really know anything about or even knew existed. I didn’t know the dangers of it, the speed of it all, or how hard it was. I think I enjoyed it…there were elements which I enjoyed but at the same time I was fearful because you are aware of what can go wrong, like hitting walls and smashing into other cars.  It can be a scary sport!

Tell us about the mini-cars in Paris. What was it like driving round the Parisian streets in tiny cars? Especially for someone so tall!

To everyone’s amazement, I could actually fit in it! I felt a bit enclosed and a bit claustrophobic but I did fit in, although I don’t think you would have got anyone in the seat behind me. The car I was in was like a transformer, you pressed a button and the wheels went in and out. My car still had a few teething problems as we were driving round but getting the chance to go around the city like we did was brilliant. Paris was somewhere I hadn’t had the chance to spend a lot of time visiting before so it was great. However, in all honesty…I think I’d rather peddle on a bike, or even walk next time!

It’s fair to say you’re the dare devil of the group. Tell us about your experience of F1 stock car racing…

It’s a sport where I got completely thrown in at the deep end. I only had a day and a half of practice before I found myself in a proper race in front of thousands of people. I think that’s just the nature of the stuff I do on the show now, and I’ve learnt to just get on with it and get stuck in; there’s no time for anything else! Everyone there was so accommodating. Frankie and his lad who trained us were initially a bit nervous I think but then I showed them I wasn’t too bad so I think he enjoyed it as well. The racing itself is a total sensory overload and it’s a world which I don’t know; there are loads of different noises, different smells, everyone’s dirty. It’s definitely a different form of motorsport to what I’ve experienced before, but what I took away from it was the amount of skill needed to do it and how good these fellas are, and how good it was of them to just let me go into their world and have a go. I think I enjoyed it!

Who had the most fun being a delivery driver?

I think I did. Paddy turned up as Postman Pad and had a stuffed cat, Chris had a transit, and I didn’t take it too seriously, I was just driving round chucking parcels at doors. It was fun! Even the dog attacking us (which is the second time that’s happened to me) was fun. I don’t think I would go on to employ any of us though as we weren’t very professional and there were a lot of damaged parcels…but it was a fun day!

After 33 series, why do you think Top Gear remains so popular?

There’s something for everyone it seems. I’ve always known I like cars but since being a part of Top Gear and getting the chance to drive more and see more I’ve actually surprised myself with just how much I love cars, and I think the same can be said for the audience. The series offers so much variety, Chris covers a lot of ground for the petrolheads, and Paddy gives the entertainment and puts a smile on everyone’s face, and then I get to do some of the more adventurous stuff, which I think all adds up to a nice mix that just works.

Do you have a favourite moment/trip from the series?

I think going down a hill on a wooden cart in Thailand with Chris Harris in the formula Hmong was so far out of our comfort zone that actually even though it was terrifying, we really enjoyed it. So yeah probably that!

Tell us about driving supercars on the derestricted Autobahn?

It sounds amazing on paper and I was really looking forward to it, but when you’re actually there it’s terrifying. You’re going up a road which is essentially like the M60 where people are driving on their way home from the office, and there’s a lane that is de-restricted every couple of miles or so where you can drive as fast as your car will go. I was driving a Pagani Huayra which doesn’t have a roof and it feels like it’s doing 100mph even when you’re doing 30mph and there was one moment where I was doing about 167 mph and I thought, this is just terrifying. I couldn't wait to finish actually. It wasn't what we thought it was going to be, but it will make good telly!

How excited are you about Team Top Gear?

It’s amazing. We’ve taken on a group of young people who would never get a chance to take part in motorsport at a higher level. Because there's no two ways about it, getting into the sport all comes down to finances and unless you've got a lot of money or you’re from a rich family you’re never going to get into that sport. The idea is about giving some talented young drivers and mechanics a chance to see if they could cut it, and they do amazingly well at it and it’s great to see. We had a race team called Paddock who were training them and I think it was exciting for them at first, but within the first few days once they realised how daunting the task ahead actually was, they really had to knuckle down and get on with the task in hand.

Was it fun taking a brand-new Range Rover to the King of Britain?

It was amazing. Normally you see Range Rovers wafting around town, you'll see someone doing the school run in one, or nipping to the supermarket and you'll never ever use what those cars are designed for, which is their off-roading capabilities. So we showed the car in a really sexy light around London, we showed how comfortable and how amazing it is, but then we said “right let's see what it's all about!” So we took it off road and it proved to be an unbelievable piece of engineering.

After 33 series, why do you think Top Gear remains so popular?

I think essentially, it's got a bit of something for everyone. It's got petrolhead bits in there of course, but it's also got a lot of entertainment as well. And it's great escapism on a Sunday night isn’t it, before getting ready to go back to work. People like to switch off by watching us driving around in exotic cars or old bangers, going round the world and visiting different places that you never get a chance to see. It’s nice easy viewing to watch on a Sunday night.

If you think pick-up trucks, you’ll probably think America. But there’s a country even more pick-up-obsessed than the USA, and that’s Thailand.

Per capita, the Thais buy more pick-ups than any other nation on the planet. Keen to find out why, the presenters each choose a local pick-up to tackle an unknown journey, taking them from the southern beaches of Bangkok, hundreds of miles north to a remote temple near the border of Laos.

The pick-ups they choose, do bear a passing resemblance to their personalities, Freddie goes large with a jacked-up Toyota Hilux, Paddy pimps up a local favourite, the Isuzu D-Max, and Chris turns an old BMW 3-Series into a pick-up truck by… hacking off the back.

Along the way, they team up with local drivers for a spot of pick-up truck racing, and then immerse themselves in Bangkok’s car culture. At this point, it becomes clear that Fred is somewhat under the weather – one Covid test later and it’s clear his journey is ending in isolation.

Paddy and Chris continue the journey alone, their trucks now laden with hundreds of hay bales they have to deliver to a remote northern village. Where, on arrival, they discover the bales form part of a racetrack for the little-known motorsport of Formula Hmong, which is basically hurtling down the side of a very steep hill in wooden go-karts. It’s also an event which, it’s fair to say, doesn’t place health and safety very high on the agenda.

Staggering away from the race, their final challenge is to transport thousands of gold tiles to help complete the building of the beautiful temple which emerges from the mist at the summit of their climb.

Chris Harris tests the Rimac Nevera, a two thousand horsepower all-electric supercar from Croatia. After getting to grips with the Nevera on the road, he heads to Elvington airfield, home to one of the longest runways in Britain, for a high-speed showdown with one of history’s very fastest petrol-powered supercars. Fair to say he departs more than a little impressed…

When you talk about supercars, it tends to be all about their big numbers. Power, speed, cost. But the presenters reckon supercars shouldn’t just be about boring, bare numbers. They should be about how they make you feel. And where better to test which supercar gives you the very best time, than in a country with beautiful roads, a rich motoring heritage and, most importantly, derestricted motorways? Yes, we’re talking Germany.

For this very important consumer test, Fred drives the Ferrari 296 GTB, and Chris takes the Porsche Cayman GT4. Paddy, meanwhiles arrives in the Pagani Huayra BC Roadster, a slice of Italian exotica with a price tag of £3.2 million. Just the thing, then, for a night drive on a stretch of speed-limit-free autobahn…

From monstrous supercars to tiny microcars. the Fifties and Sixties saw a whole rash of tiny pods designed for busy urban environments, but for some reason they never caught on.

But now, microcars are back in a big way. Well, a small way. And we decided it was time to run the rule over some of the latest, tiniest offerings. Chris picked the Citroen Ami, the spiritual successor to the old 2CV isn’t even technically a car but a quadricycle. Paddy chose the new electric Carver, a three-wheeler that gives you all the tilt, none of the guilt. And Freddie went for the City Transformer, a micro-machine that literally shifts shape at the press of a button.

Their testing process takes them from the madly busy, enormous roundabout of L’Arc du Triomphe, to coffee breaks, to a spot of shopping, all without ever leaving their cars. And then a treasure hunt around Paris, finishing at the base of the Eiffel Tower.

Not that F1 – another F1 entirely. Given Fred’s complete lack of fear combined with his competitive nature, the producers decided to throw him into the world of F1 Stock Car Racing, a full-contact motorsport where bumping your opponent isn’t just permitted, but actively encouraged. Fred’s trained by F1 legends Frankie Wainman Junior, and his son Frankie Junior Junior, as he prepares to compete in an oval circuit in Kings Lynn. Get ready for a bruising experience.

Five years ago, Mercedes announced something very exciting: that they were going to build an F1 car – for the road. Then things went very, very quiet. Until a few weeks ago, when Chris Harris got a call saying, “Remember that F1 car for the road we were working on? Well, it’s finished. Do you fancy a test drive’. Turns out, he did. Also turns out, that test drive didn’t go exactly to plan…

There’s a new Range Rover on the scene, and Land Rover claim it’s the most luxurious car they’ve ever built. After a wafty drive around London, Paddy concludes that he needs a tougher test to find out whether it’s a true Range Rover. So he invites Chris to join him in Wales at the fearson King of Britain event – also known as the toughest off-road event in the country – to really put it through its paces.

Top-tier motor racing. It’s exciting, it’s exotic, and it’s also… pretty much a closed shop to anyone without a lot of money, and a lot of connections.

So, Paddy decided it was time for an experiment. What would happen if you took two young drivers with no real track experience, and two young mechanics, and gave them a shot at the big time? How would they cope when pitted against well-funded drivers who’ve been doing it for years?

Flyers were sent out. Thousands applied. Four young people were cast. And then came the tough bit: just eight weeks to train them up to race pace, ready for a race in the prestigious GT Cup at Donington. Driving a McLaren. Luckily Paddy was able to call in some help from F1 ace, Lando Norris.

Battle of the hot hatches

Chris Harris heads to the Top Gear test track to try out the new Honda Civic Type R, a hot hatch that seems to have cast off its thuggish image in favour of a more grown-up attitude. But, as Chris quickly discovers, it’s still a proper old-school hooligan under the surface.

But if you want an old-school hot hatch, there’s another option out there. Enter Freddie in a restomodded Peugeot 205 GTI – a classic hot hatch from the Eighties that’s been rebuilt and regenerated, better than ever before…

Family cars. They’re the cars most of us actually buy, but with so many models on the market, how do you even start to go about making a choice? Well, in a shocking development for the last episode in the series, the presenters decide to do some proper consumer testing and whittle 50 family cars down to three finalists. Fair to say their testing methods are unlikely to be adopted by WhatCar any time soon…

Paddy heads to Italy to sample the jaw-dropping Daytona SP3, Ferrari's £1.8m, retro-styled supercar inspired by its iconic Sixties racers. After living la dolce vita on some beautiful Italian roads, Paddy decides it's unfair to keep the fun of a V12-engined, 800bhp orchestra-on-wheels all to himself, so sets up as a local taxi firm to give a few lucky locals the cab ride of a lifetime...

Thanks to the booming world of online deliveries, vans are big business right now The problem is, a new one could set you back 30 grand or so. So what if want wanted to get into the delivery game on a budget? What should you buy?

To find out, the producers gave each of the presenters £3000 to buy a van, give it a proper delivery company paint job and meet up in Kent for a parcel-posting challenge…