- Ben Collins is best known for playing The Stig, but he wasn’t the only successful British racer to play the role.
- Phil Keen replaced Collins after 2010 and was Top Gear’s tamed racing driver until 2022.
- The 40-year-old has had a long and successful GT3 racing career.
It’s been almost a decade since Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May left Top Gear, but only now has the identity of the third and final Stig been revealed.
Clarkson recently hosted a private viewing party for The Grand Tour’s final episode at his British pub and afterward, held a short Q&A with attendees. During this Q&A, he revealed the final driver to play the masked racer was British GT champion Phil Keen.
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The identities of the two Stigs before Keen have been known for many years. The first, who exclusively donned a black racing suit and helmet, was Perry McCarthy. He was later replaced by Ben Collins, who stuck around until 2010 when he decided to reveal his identity and release an autobiography. Keen then took over the job and held it until the show’s final episode in 2022.
Keen currently competes in the European Le Mans Series and has spent most of his racing career driving GT3 cars, including the Lamborghini Huracan GT3, Porsche 911 GT3-R, BMW Z4 GT3, Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, and Ferrari 296 GT3. He has 24 race wins and 16 pole positions to his name and has finished runner-up in the British GT3 Championship on three separate occasions.
While this is the first time Keen has been confirmed as The Stig, it’s long been an open secret he was playing the mystery racing driver. In fact, British tabloids had first speculated he would take over the role from Ben Collins way back in 2010, but somehow, no one has officially spilled the beans until now. As Top Gear is no longer on the air, it’s hardly a surprise that Clarkson decided now was the right time to drop this bombshell.
The future of Top Gear remains uncertain after it was prematurely canned after co-host Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff was badly injured during filming in December 2022.
