How much of top gear is staged?

If Clarkson drove legally for the whole race, he would have lost every single one.

Also, I think the one where he raced Captain Slow and Captain Teeth in a light aircraft (was that the Bugatti one?) was a bit staged, because Richard and James should have won that easily if they'd have started 2 hours earlier - it then wouldn't have got dark and Captain Slow would have been able to continue flying.

Yes, that was the Bugatti one!

Also, to whoever said they can only go as fast as the Range Rover that is filming them, why don't they get the cameraman in the same car as they've got, so they can go just as fast?!

it's supposed to be a motoring magazine though. All they do is review super cars. My dad says it's just three boy racers driving around in high performance cars.

There's generally little space to put a cameraman, crew and kit in a car like a Bugatti Veryon

Aparently Clarkson was on This Morning once explaining about the races. I never saw it and I forget what the outcome was, but aparently Clarkson was just saying how he can only go as fast as the range rover who films it. So basically each race may as well be a Range Rover vs Boat/Plane etc.

I have noticed some of the challanges have been too neck and neck and I wonder if some of them are partly scripted, it seems odd that Clarkson often seems to win.

The bugatti race is a classic example, you would expect the winner to win by a mile not just a few minutes.