Captain Slow turns off the charm

Unless you’re a billionaire, in which case it doesn’t matter what you say to girls, it’s best not to use a slightly creepy “Hello…” as your opening flirt gambit. And especially not when your victims targets are a good 15 years younger than you.

More Top Gear awards after the jump…

For sale - one tiny previous owner

Frank Lampard appears to be in the market for a new Ferrari, so perhaps he should contact television presenter Richard Hammond. The Top Gear presenter has put his 1997 Ferrari 550 on the market for a mere £39,950 (just over two days wages for the Chelsea star), and it has just 49,000 miles on the clock.

If you fancy The Hamster’s old motor, click here.

The man in the white helmet steps into the spotlight

All eyes were on The Stig at the Albert Hall last night: Top Gear’s mysterious test driver accepted “Best Factual Programme” award for the BBC show at the National TV Awards.

Is that The Stig’s girlfriend sat next to him, or just a very confused guest wondering why a man in a crash helmet is sat next to her. We suspect the latter.

More Stig pics after the jump:

BBC sells top secret car-show format to the Russians

There are currently American and Australian versions of Top Gear. Now Russia is set to attempt to recreate that Clarkson magic.

Russian broadcaster REN TV has paid for the right to the UK format, and is searching for its own Jeremy Clarkski, Richard Hammondov and James Mayev.

A REN TV spokesman said: “Russia can be a difficult market to access. We hope our version of the show will become as popular as the original.”

BBC show showcases pretty cars we can’t even buy in the UK

Last week, Jeremy Clarkson, James May and little tiny Richard Hammond were spotted in San Francisco respectively testing out a 2009 Corvette ZR1, a Dodge Challenger SRT8, and a 2009 Cadillac CTS-V .

Over the weekend, rumours that they are filming another hour-long Top Gear in USA show were fleshed out as the boys were spotted at the Bonneville Salt Flats (where there are no corners to test the ropey handling of those lumbering American motors), where they sported some rather fetching baseball caps.

See more pictures of Lord Clarkson et al after the jump…

Soccer fans suffer for Auntie’s successful motorsport bid

Football fans - who love nothing better than to moan endlessly about their chosen sport - are currently annoyed with subscription channel Setanta for stealing away all the England away games, and leaving terrestrial telebox viewers without so much as a brief highlights package.

In defence of their perfectly-reasonable decision to host England away matches, Setanta’s director of sport Trevor East has blamed the BBC for spaffing their budget on securing the rights to next year’s Formula One season, paying some £50m more than ITV laid down for their current five year deal.

So, did the Beeb make the right choice in nabbing the F1, or should they have let ITV keep the coverage and allowed footy fans to get their fix of frustration and anger through watching the national side?

Votes and comments below, please.

Clarkson and co get down with the kids

Excellent news for Top Gear fans. The programme has now got its very own channel on YouTube. And as this has been setup by the BBC and all above board, it should mean that the videos actually stay up there rather than disappearing when the internet police spot them (as is currently the case). While this is all very good for you, it does not make life much easier for Gridcrasher because embedding is disabled on all the videos, which means we can’t put them on the site for you. Bugger!

Top Gear presenter forgets how to drive

This is the classic moment when Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond fell under the spell of hypnotist Paul McKenna. The Hamster completely forgot how to drive, including hilariously using the gear stick as a joystick. He also acquires a pedal power Porsche 911 which he believes is the greatest car ever!