Everything you need to know about Mansfield's appearance on Top Gear

Mansfield is set to appear on hit BBC car show Top Gear this Sunday, June 23, as the new series of the show returns on our screens.

New hosts Freddie Flintoff, Paddy McGuinness and Chris Harris visited our streets in February to film for the show, which saw the hosts race around a circuit in the town on home-made electric sports cars.

The show returned for its first episode of the new series last night (Sunday, June 16), and will run each Sunday for the next two months.

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Here's everything you need to know about Mansfield's cameo on Top Gear.

When is it on and what channel? Sunday, June 23 at 8pm on BBC Two.

What's going on? The future of cars, we’re told, is electric. Problem is, most electric cars out there at the moment are either (a) very expensive or (b) very boring, or (c) both. The TG presenters reckon that, if the world’s to get really excited about EVs, what we need is a budget electric sports car. Something cheap, battery-powered and, most importantly, fun.

So what have the boys done? With no such cars forthcoming on the market, Paddy, Freddie and Chris each set out to build their own electric sports cars for a very small amount of money, which they then set about testing with a tour of some of the Midlands finest industrial locations, a tour culminating in Top Gear’s inaugural urban electric endurance race: the 24 Minutes of Le Mansfield.

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How you reacted to Top Gear filming in Mansfield​BBC's Top Gear film race around Mansfield town centreSee pictures of BBC's Top Gear racing around MansfieldCouncil issues statement about 'secrecy' of Top Gear eventJust like the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but shorter. And in Mansfield. Cue some wheel-to-wheel, high-octane racing - another small incident with Freddie and some market stalls and a small amount of actual electrocution.

Did you know? Paddy McGuinness’ electric car ran out of battery and he had to knock on doors until he found a friendly family who would help him charge it from their mains socket and Mansfield District Council allowed Top Gear to lock down the high street and set up a race sequence on the city streets

Were there any incidents during filming? After seemingly misjudging a bend Freddie Flintoff smashed a customised mid-90s Subaru MV pickup truck straight through a buffer of straw bales and into an empty market stall in the town. A witness, who captured the footage said: "Reactions were mixed. Some people laughed, others were in a slight shock."

A Mansfield District Council spokesman, said: "We were sworn to secrecy by the BBC because of concerns about safety if a large crowd had turned up to watch. Freddie slightly lost control and crashed into an empty market stall - nobody was hurt.

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"This shows the most important thing when holding a driving event like this in a town centre is ensuring people are safe, which is why this couldn’t be publicised.

"There was plenty of action and the smell of burning tyres as seven cars did loops around the inner ring road. There was a risk that filming wouldn’t have gone ahead if word had got out in advance."

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