In the latest episode released today, Richard Hammond drove the ND, James May had a hardcore Zenos E10 and Jeremy Clarkson was in an expensive Alfa 4C. They were in Morocco and the MX-5 looked great.
Mazda will be very happy about this.
Until the Hamster wrecked it…
Yes and its victory in the race was underplayed (unusual for Hamster!)
Shame as it was a lovely Recarco edition as well!
Another great episode
no surprise it won, being in the fastest colour 
I think had Hammond also driven the E10 that would have been the fastest.
But there is no question that the MX-5 took the crown as the best buy - obviously we knew that but it also held it’s own against the others very well to the critical eye.
Did they say if it was the 1.5 or 2.0 litre (I guess it’s possible to tell by the wheel size)?
They may not be quite as happy that between the joint efforts of Hammond and Clarkson the car was comprehensively damaged in the process.
TBH I found the whole thing pretty sad. and more reminiscent of a gang of Essex Chavs in an after hours supermarket car park than ‘Professional TV Car Critics’. I say sad because I’ve enjoyed Top Gear for many years, but they’re behaving like just unrestrained yobs on this show.
Top Gear ceased to be anything other than an entertainment show a long time ago.
As a car show, it had a fairly limited audience. As an entertainment show the audience broadened massively over the years, unsuprisingly. Motoring enthusiasts realised they would get nothing serious from it a long time ago, although lets face it there are better youtube channels for that stuff now than anything TV ever offered.
They are behaving in exactly the manner that will ensure the shows popularity. As evidence by the fact my ‘not at all interested in cars’ wife likes Grand Tour.
Take it for what it is, which is three blokes who love cars and refuse to grow up, and the show is excellent.
Everything apart from the first four sentances is of course my opinion and nothing more.
Plus 1 !!! to above comments
I was glad to see the 1st episode from America and was looking forward to the series. Episode 2 was disappointing and 3 simply dire, I had to watch it all the way through as I was expecting at least a 5min snippet with something good in it, alas not. This last one had the MX5 in so I had to watch it but ultimately the end result was of 3 overpaid yobs with a budget in the millions to get rid off. A Jolly boy’s outing doing a dream job but with a tired format and could be so so much better with the bottomless money pit Amazon have invested in. 
The production values of the films are strong, they’re nice to look at.
The clarity of the high def filming process does the actors/presenters few favours though, the make up is too noticeable.
The studio bits are finding their feet, this definitely needs more work, the chemistry seems forced and the humour is weak. James May in particular seems embarrassed.
Lets be fair[or brutal ] it is rubbish [or crap] remove as required
He is the one still with a Beeb Contract - James May: The Christmas Reassembler - Media Centre
MX-5 piece was ok - it was a pre production car and had been rehashed to look like a Recaro (Duane) if you can see the reg in my Avatar it was the same car. So it was schedule for destruction, might as well give it to them to!
With Dunsfold getting planning permission for houses, I still suspect that TG was intentionally euthanised.
But then even a Bulldozed building site will be more exciting than the new GT track, I know Amazon are footing the bill for this, but the American on that ‘track’ is the weakest segment in the new line up.
You are damn right there, he is pretty bloody irritating.
Totally crap, the new top gear series 2 now has a chance to shine, hope they make a go of it because I can’t see Amazon sinking more into TGT if they carry on as they are.
Each episode has got progreseively worse, their starting to become flipping annoying now.
It’s almost as if they don’t care how bad it is.
.
There were some dodgy pieces in the whole programme I agree but my post was about the MX-5 piece which was well filmed, fun to watch and had loads of positive comments about the ND.