Tiff Needell

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Timothy Needell (better known as Tiff Needell), born October 29, 1951 at Havant, England, is a racing driver and television presenter. He is known for his almost legendary car control and powerslides.

Tiff Needell, former presenter of BBC's Top Gear and currently presenter of Five's Fifth Gear

Career

Needell attended City University, London where he achieved an Honours Degree in Civil Engineering. Hired by George Wimpey & Co, his day job was as a Structural Design Engineer.

Needell's racing career started in 1970, when he attended a drivers course at Brands Hatch. His first results came in the 1970 Daily Mail Stars of Tomorrow FF1600 when he finished fourth. As a result of winning a Formula Ford car in the United Kingdom's Autosport magazine competition, he was able to continue in Formula Fords for 1971. Using a Lotus type 69 for two seasons and despite little funds he was able to forge himself into a front-runner in the category. In 1973 he switched to an Elden chassis and due to financial struggles he was not able to score any results until 1975 when a friend loaned a Crosslé 25F to him. With this car, Tiff won the Townsend Thoresen Brands Hatch Challenge, ending the year with a "special commendation" Grovewood Award [link]

Progression to FF2000 followed in 1976, with Tiff finishing second in the APG Championship. He also won the Dunlop Award which was based on his qualifying performances. At the end of the year he was awarded the premier Grovewood Award. The remainder of the 1970s saw Needell as a front runner in the British Formula 3 series and then in the Aurora British Formula One championship. In 1979 he was unable to graduate to the F1 World Championship due to the lack of the correct licence, but he was back in 1980, driving two Grands Prix for Ensign, qualifying for one, the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder. However, he had an engine problem and did not finish the race. The Grand Prix which he did not qualify for was the Monaco Grand Prix.

Since then, Needell's racing career has mainly consisted of racing tin-tops (hard-topped cars), with varying levels of success in sports cars, historic racing and touring cars. He achieved particular notoriety after an accident with Nigel Mansell at the 1993 TOCA shoot out race at Donington Park. However, Needell is best known in his native country as a noted television presenter and television and print motoring journalist, in particular in association with the BBC TV series Top Gear. In 2001, the BBC cancelled Top Gear (the show was brought back in 2002), Tiff and the whole cast defected and signed with Channel 5 to produce and host a new motoring show named Fifth Gear. He does however, still contribute to Top Gear magazine.

Trivia

The nickname "Tiff" came from the inability of Tiff's older brother to pronounce his birth name Timothy correctly when they were both children.

Tiff has provided his voice for the first and second games in the 'TOCA Touring Car series' for British video game developer Codemasters.

Tiff's most recent DVD release was 'Danger Zone' in 2000. This features Needell testing various high performance cars

His younger brother Chris is a team manger for [Barwell Motorsports] team racing Aston Martin DBRS9

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