Ben Collins is best known as the man behind BBC2’s legendary character The Stig, as well as one of the UK’s most respected stunt drivers and racing professionals.
Ben Collins
With a career that spans Formula 3, Le Mans, and high-profile stunt work in James Bond and The Dark Knight Rises, he has built a reputation for precision and performance under extreme pressure.
Beyond the track, Ben has become a sought-after high performance speaker, captivating corporate audiences with lessons on teamwork, preparation, and marginal gains. His unique perspective bridges motorsport, film, and business, showing how the smallest improvements can deliver the biggest results.
In this exclusive interview with The Motivational Speakers Agency, Ben reflects on the transferable skills from racing and stunts, the importance of risk management, and what businesses can learn from the mindset of elite performers.
Q: Motorsport and film stunt work rely on precision and teamwork. What transferable skills can businesses take from your world?
Ben Collins: “Well, I think there’s a lot of parallels between what I’ve done in motorsport and in the film industry, working in stunts with mainstream business. Some of them are the most obvious and fundamental, which is working with the best people you can.
“A lot of my experiences over the years showcase highly skilled people working together as a team. It’s a bit of a cliché talking about teamwork and using the right people for the right job, but in my world it’s so fundamental and so core that you end up with these great examples.
“People working in special effects who work on the canons that help the cars flip over, pairing that with people working against the flow of traffic on their bikes and cars, and people like me sliding and activating these quite complicated pieces of technology, all at the same time.
“It’s such a collaboration. It really showcases that in a fun way for businesses that are bringing teams together from different international groups, different experiences. The stunt side really showcases that. With racing, there’s a unity of purpose – we’re all there to win, the same way that businesses are there to succeed. One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that you gain performance everywhere, not in just one area.
“You might be looking for half a second on a lap time. The mistake is to try and find that in one corner – it’s usually small pieces everywhere. It’s human performance, personal development, and how I achieve those things using mental skills, visualisation, and rehearsing and planning ahead of time. It’s weeks or months building up to the main event where you deliver maximum performance.
“There’s a lot of preparation that goes into that, and that’s a skill set that works with businesses. It’s also collaboration with the technology side that feeds into it – the engineering we bring. A lot of lap time is bought and paid for over the winter before the season begins.
“It’s a continuous evolution that gets the performance, again working together. It’s those two things in unison – collaboration across different skill sets and searching for improvement in every area.”
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Ilona Maher: Rugby Star, Role Model, Rule Breaker
Q: You’ve worked across Top Gear, Bond films and YouTube. How has evolving media shaped your work on and off screen?
Ben Collins: “The way content is filmed has really changed. Even during Top Gear, camera technology was evolving. At first I’d jump in and help presenters make things tidier on camera. As cameras improved, you could see through windscreens more – so we had to wear wigs. I looked ridiculous in a Clarkson wig, but it was worth it for the team.
“Top Gear was shot beautifully, thanks to an incredible camera team. That’s why it’s so watchable and repeatable, still being rebroadcast today. Many of that team now work on Clarkson’s Farm – they deserve knighthoods. The filming made it timeless.
“Movies like Bond are different – everything is shot for real, no CGI. Quality is everything. You can’t cut corners. My first Bond film took three months to shoot less than two minutes of footage. Precision is everything, and the crews are much larger.
“Then there’s YouTube – a huge adjustment. Sticking a GoPro on, shooting something raw, and if it resonates, it works. All formats have their place. Streaming too – I’m a huge fan, currently smashing through Yellowstone. Each platform is different, but all exciting.”
Q: Racing and stunts demand risk-taking under pressure. How do you manage risk, and what can business leaders learn?
Ben Collins: “In the movie-making process, my whole job is risk management. I would argue the same is true on the track. There’s an adage that says to finish first, you first have to finish. I learned the hard way that not finishing was a problem – going for a move that was too risky, having a collision. Nearly made it, but nearly doesn’t count.
“You do have to learn to do what we’d call in the movie-making world “dynamic risk assessments”. In racing, you rely quite a lot on experience to see what is high risk and whether it’s worth it. There are times when you have to take the plunge and try to pull a move. Motorsport is about that balance, but in movie-making, the entire department of stunts is there to manage risk.
“One of the best ways to mitigate risk is using the best people for the job. They have the experience, the ability, the instincts to make the right decisions at the right time. I showcase this, particularly in the Bond movies I’ve worked on, but really in all films I’ve been involved with. It’s about delivering that safely and precisely, and how specific you are in rehearsals.
“Businesses are the same. You can make your mistakes behind closed doors more gently than when it really counts. It’s down to forward planning, but also having enough experience in the team to be able to react, and react in the right way when needed.”
This exclusive interview with Ben Collins was conducted by Chris Tompkins of The Motivational Speakers Agency.
Tagged in motor review Sports