So, Mark Webber has announced his retirement from racing. As he walks away from a tremendously successful career, I like to think that Top Gear played its part in that success. Let me explain…

Back in the mid-90s the then boss of Top Gear magazine Stuart Snaith hatched a plan to offer both sponsorship and coverage in TG mag to ten up and coming racing drivers at the start of each season. He provided a fund of £5,000 to sponsor these stars of tomorrow and told me to draw up a shortlist. They would get 500 quid each as a contribution to their year’s racing. Like that was going to make a difference. All they needed to do in return was to carry a Top Gear magazine patch on their overalls and a small sticker on their race cars.

Working with the British Automobile Racing Club we put out a few feelers each March and came up with ten names. Over three years from 1995 we selected 30 drivers, most of whom were no doubt jolly good fellows who went on to become accomplished racers but ultimately slipped off the radar. However, four of them were very much in our minds here at Top Gear over the following 20 years.

First up was Fergus Campbell, who still races with modest success in the MG Trophy series but is better known at TG Towers for being a leading light of our advertising sales team for several years.

Fergus was in good company because our next award winner had rather more racing success. The late and much missed Dan Wheldon went on to become an Indycar legend, winning both the championship and the Indy 500 in 2005 and the Indy 500 for a second time in 2011 before being tragically killed in a race at the Las Vegas Speedway later that year.

And then there was a chap called Ben Collins who went on to become a famous author and claims to have appeared in a popular BBC television programme – although he doesn’t like to talk about it much.

The final driver on our books was Mark Webber, nine times Grand Prix winner, 2015 WEC champion and all-round good bloke. As he looks back on his illustrious career no doubt Webber will realise that it wasn’t Minardi boss Paul Stoddart who gave him his F1 debut or even Red Bull F1 team principal Christian Horner who ran him for the best years of his F1 career that he has to thank for all his success. No, if it wasn’t for that £500 of Top Gear magazine’s cash it could have been a very different story.

Joking aside, Mark probably has no recollection of our deal 20 years ago, but we are proud to have identified and supported a hero of our sport at the start of his career. We wish him a long and happy retirement.