I think here's what happened:
TG's production office finally arranged Michael Schumacher into the show, and, best of all, they got him to bring his Ferrari F(ugly)XX with him. Otherwise it would have been quite inaccessible vehicle to "review" in the show.
Mind you, they used the same "let's bring the owner of a Ferrari to the show to plug <some shit>" -trick with the original Enzo, too. And as WE all know, it isn't the first time Stig is being replaced with a "factory driver", so nothing new there. But I think they made a bit of a mess with the whole Schtiggey-nonsense and I was quite unimpressed with the FXX lap too (remembering the staggering DBR9-lap, which was done by, AFAIK, The Real Stig). Bloody afwul to look at too, the FXX...
News bit was just something else, I think they had to spare time from their usual rant and funny commentary for the Schumi-bit and the race. Not that they can blame there being any news, that is. But maybe the normal service will resume in the next episode.
Race was epic, and it's funny that the best part of this car show was a train. That machine is just staggering, oh gods...I didn't fancy the motorbike apart from it's name, which I have to admit is, very cool indeed
Car + James were brilliant, just the proper combination for eachother. Richard seemed to be left to the background a bit, and I started to wonder if he even raced in the same day (or decade) with the other guys, since it was raining almost all the time he was on that bike, while the other enjoyed the sunshine!
Evora, blah. I was left under the impression that they just had to put some car review in this episode for it to be proper Top Gear show. I was also a bit suprised how good Jezza found it to be, after reading the article in the new Top Gear magazine. But hey, opinions, opinions. And I have to say that I love their British bias in everything they do, that's probably one of the reasons TG GB is so lovable
One thing they HAD to do was the bit where the Schtig is driving like an utter idiot with the RPC, especially with Jeremy's comment "I don't think he's the Stig". TG just couldn't give up the Stig-cult so easily. It was just made to make the point clear to the main audience, I'm pretty sure every proper fan and everyone here understands that Schumi isn't the Stig we have seen in the previous episodes. Schumacher would have been a bit boring Stig anyway....
BTW, the're have been quite a lot of motorbikes in the Top Gear recently. That's worrying, if you ask me and catastrophic, if you ask Jeremy Clarkson