Race Across The World: Humax TV Tonight

Race Across The World continues tonight at 9pm on BBC One and iPlayer.

After enjoying the tranquillity of the paradise islands of Koh Phi Phi, the teams now face a giant leap into the unknown, leaving Thailand behind to embark on a 2,000km journey across Malaysia to the rarely visited Indonesian island of Sumatra, where the sixth checkpoint lies in the mountain-fringed city of Bukittinggi.

Our intrepid duos will need to decide whether they want to island hop via Koh Lipe, maximising their time on Thailand’s white sandy beaches but likely to put a strain on their budget, or go back to the Thai mainland to make the most of cheap and frequent transport links down the Malay peninsula. At this stage in the race, with budgets dwindling and the pressure mounting, every decision counts.

The team’s this year are two mother and daughter duos, Brydie and Sharon and Eugenie and Isabel; best friends, Alfie and Owen; married couple, Stephen and Viv and brother and sister, Betty and James.

Before the race started, Betty said: “I think part of our strategy is just being nice to people, speaking to locals and using the fact that we are approachable and can speak to people as a sort of tool, I suppose. But in terms of a set plan, no. Also, coming from Yorkshire, naturally our motto is ‘it’ll be reet’. ‘Our nanna has a motto she says for everything and especially if there are any challenges in the family she always says ‘onwards and upwards’ no matter what it is. It could be something that we think is the worst thing ever and she’ll just go “onwards and upwards” So, we’ll be keeping that in mind in the race, definitely”.

Alfie said: “The strategy is, in very loose terms, earn first and race later. So, particularly in the first leg just try and not eat into our spending too much. We think that everybody in the first leg is going to be quite ‘Gung Ho’ and perhaps aren’t going to have that much headspace, they’re going to be a little bit erratic, so we’re going to try and take advantage of that. But I think as soon as that klaxon goes that might all go out the window!”

Watch, record or stream the series with a Humax set-top box.