Google has been around for many years now, and daily there are millions of questions being thrown at Google, but have you actually wondered what the top searches are? Is everything made by Aston Martin better than everything made by Ferrari? Why is Earth round? Is Einstein really from Mars? And, finally, who is the Stig?

In the case of the Stig, that topic is also one of Google’s most often searched queries. Interestingly enough, those in the know claim they’ve had the answer for quite some time, especially motor heads journalists and car manufacturers, but they’ve never once disclose the identity of his, or it, due to upholding the spirit of Top Gear. Speculation about his identity has ranged from “former” Formula one champion Michael Schumacher, to Tim Schrick, to Mr Bean creator Rowan Atkinson.

Until now only a handful of BBC executives and the programme’s presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May knew the identity of the Stig.

In June last year the seven-time Formula 1 champion driver Michael Schumacher dressed as the Stig and removed his helmet on the programme. The BBC refused to confirm or deny if Schumacher really was the mystery driver, but the scene was widely regarded as a hoax.

This is because Ferrari would never allow anybody, besides their own drivers, to drive the Ferrari FXX, especially around the track. What’s more, that specific Ferrari FXX used in Top Gear Season 13 Episode 1 was owned by Michael Schumacher, which was the world one FXX (out of 30) that is black and without the white strip.

But the seven-year mystery surrounding top Gear’s masked test driver the Stig appears finally to be over. Close this page if you would like to keep pondering who he (or it, if you may) is. Go ahead and read this article if you really wish to know the ‘the biggest mystery of the century’. However, please take it with a pint of salt.

The Stig’s unmasking comes after the Daily Mail last week revealed how he was locked in a legal battle with the BBC over plans to disclose his identity in his autobiography. Lawyers warned that secrecy was essential to his role in the BBC2 programme, and that he had already signed the agreement, which smells lawsuit to me if he does write it. However, now there’s no need for him to write the autobiography to know who the Stig is.

The clue to his identity emerges in the accounts of his company, Collins Autosport. Yes, the Stig is ‘supposed to be’ Ben Collins, the former Formula Three racing driver. Ben’s own company recorded a ‘cornerstone year’ in December 2003, a month after the white-clad Stig’s first appearance on TV. We can all guess that’s the pay check from BBC.

This was partly down to ‘driving services provided for the BBC, mainly in the Top Gear programme’, the accounts said. Directors noted the work offered ‘good long-term prospects for continuing income,’ the Sunday Times reported.

A BBC spokesman said: “‘It’s no surprise that Ben Collins’s company accounts show that he was driving for Top Gear as he has appeared on the programme as himself a couple of times, for example in the Mitsubishi Evo challenge.”

‘Ben supplies his services as a driver himself and his company also supplies other drivers.

Another source says that Collins, who has doubled for Daniel Craig for stunts in a James Bond film, was named as a possible Stig after a builder claimed to have seen the distinctive white outfit at the driver’s Bristol home. But he has always refused to answer questions on the subject.

Well, there you have it. The century’s biggest mystery partly solved. However, it’s pretty much up to you to accept this or just leave it behind. I personally would still think the Stig is a CIA superhuman project gone wrong. Now, will BBC kill of the white Stig in the next season, and introduce the pink Stig?

SOURCE via Daily Mail