The Show - Production Notes - - Aston vs Ferrari

The first job was to find another driver. Whenever we do these head-to-head tests on our track, we tend to draft in another pair of hands to drive the second car. We've used Ferrari test driver Luca Badoer, for example, and our very own Stig. But because Ferrari and Aston Martin are such emotive subjects and we really wanted to discuss the cars in depth, we needed someone who had opinions and could actually string a sentence together. Obviously, that ruled out all racing drivers, including the resolutely mute Stig.

Fortunately, our old friend Steve Coogan was in the country on a break from filming a movie in Hollywood. Calls were made and as soon as the word "Ferrari" was mentioned, Steve was on his way to the track with string-backed driving gloves in hand.

Steve is quite mind-bogglingly knowledgeable about all things motoring and did a fantastic job of chatting about the cars. We then moved on to the section of the film where he and Jeremy race each other around the track before pulling up for some more chat. Unfortunately, Steve was on a pretty tight schedule that day and we didn't manage to get all the shots we needed of the cars racing before he had to leave.

The Stig was drafted in to help finish filming the race sequence and generally help Steve look like an absolute hero behind the wheel.

On a technical note, the very slow motion footage that peppers this film was shot using a special Tornado high-speed camera. It's a very impressive piece of kit, shooting up to 1000 frames per second and is often used to film sporting events like Wimbledon and the Grand National.