Proton Hits Top Gear

MILPERRA, AUSTRALIA – February 1, 2011: Two of PROTON Motorsports’ Satria Neo S2000s featured in last night’s BBC Top Gear programme as part of the Ashes Special show.

The Ashes Special pitted the United Kingdom’s Top Gear team of Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond against their Australian counterparts, Ewen Page, Shane Jacobson and Steve Pizzati.

Two identical PROTON Satria Neo S200s were supplied by MEM, the British-based firm which prepares and runs PROTON Motorsports Satrias for the FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship and the Intercontinental Rally Challenge. The Satrias were included in the final round of a five-event challenge, which had included a drag race, drifting, a race with cars on top of each other and sheep herding on motorbikes.

The final section was run around a mixed surface track at Cornbury Park in Oxfordshire – not a venue unused to rally cars, having previously hosted a stage of Rally Great Britain, in 1999 for the last time.

For the final challenge, Hammond was the co-driver in the United Kingdom Satria Neo S2000, with The Stig driving the PROTON, soon after he’d tackled a lap of the Top Gear test track in a Ferrari GTO. For the Australians, Pizzati drove and was navigated by Page. Courtesy of a 15.1-point lead, the Australians started the stage 15.1 seconds ahead.

They were caught and passed by The Stig and Hammond, who crossed the line ahead to seal a repeat of England’s famous Ashes victory earlier this month.

The PROTONs were on screen for six minutes during the section, which was filmed last year, and were then taken into the studio where they were placed for the closing part of the show.

Top Gear is regularly watched by more than seven million viewers in the UK.

PROTON Motorsports team principal Chris Mellors said: “It was great to work with the team on this – and even better as the United Kingdom won! The guys all seemed to really enjoy the cars and it was good to see The Stig behind the wheel of a Satria Neo S2000.”

The Stig will be replaced by regular PROTON Motorsport drivers Alister McRae and Chris Atkinson for the team’s next outing, the opening round of the FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship: the