May was briefly a co-presenter of the original "Top Gear" series during 1999. He first co-presented the revived series of "Top Gear" in its second series in 2003, where he earned the nickname "Captain Slow" owing to his careful driving style. Despite this sobriquet, he has done some especially high-speed driving – in the 2007 series he took a Bugatti Veyron to its top speed of , then in 2010 he achieved in the Veyron's newer 16.4 Super Sport edition. In an earlier episode he also tested the original version of the Bugatti Veyron against the Pagani Zonda F.