Fifth Gear Tonight: Drifting, Mercedes SL, Ferrari World Record & Nitrogen in tyres

Fifth Gear tonight sees Jonny learning to drift, Vicki out at the Ferrari world record gathering, Jason with the new Mercedes SL and Tiff on Nitrogen in tyres.

Our weekly preview of what’s on Fifth Gear continues with news of what Fifth Gear has on offer tonight, 11th March 2013.

Jonny turns in to Tiff Needell tonight as he learns how to Drift cars – in this case a a specially modified BMW M5 – ahead of competing in the famous Gatebil show in Norway, with tuition from 2011 British drift Champion Mark Carter.

Jonny is the James May of the Fifth Gear team, so teaching a man more used to plodding than blatting should be an interesting exercise.

Jason Plato gets to go and play with the new Mercedes SL to see if the latest version offers more for the driver than many of the SL models in recent years. It seems the new SL – particularly the SL63 AMG and SL65 AMG - offer not just big power but decent dynamics too, so it’ll be interesting to see what a man who recognises a properly set-up car thinks.

The Vicki Butler-Henderson piece tonight was obviously filmed last September when Ferrari organised a parade of 964 Ferraris at Silverstone to claim anew world record for the number of Ferraris on track at one time. It seems Vicki grabbed a ride in a Fezza to take part, and we’re assuming she grabs a bit of time with Felipe Massa, who led the record-breaking parade.

Finally, Tiff takes a look at the latest ‘go faster’ trick of filling car tyres with nitrogen instead of air.

Nitrogen has been used in tyres on racing cars and planes for years, with the advantage of less corrosion and fewer problems in extremes of heat and cold. The fad now is to fill car tyres with pure nitrogen to gain a performance edge, but is there any justification for the claim? Tiff finds out.

The latest episode of Fifth Gear – episode 5 – is on Discovery tonight – 11th March 2013 – at 8pm.

By Cars UK