James Daniel May was born in Bristol, one of four children; he has two sisters and a brother. May attended Caerleon Endowed Junior School in Newport. He spent his teenage years in South Yorkshire where he attended Oakwood Comprehensive School in Rotherham and was a choirboy at Whiston Parish Church. He was also at school with Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes actor Dean Andrews.

May was 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 253 mph (407 km/h), then in 2010 he achieved 259.11 mph (417 km/h) 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.  May, along with co-presenter Jeremy Clarkson and an Icelandic support crew, travelled by car to the magnetic North Pole in 2007, using a modified Toyota Hilux. In the words of Clarkson, he was the first person to go there "who didn't want to be there". He also drove a modified Toyota Hilux up the side of the erupting volcano Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland. He has also driven a 1.3-litre Suzuki SJ413 through Bolivia, along Death Road, and over the Andes to the Pacific Ocean in Chile.  In Season 22 Episode 7, he drove a rallycross Volkswagen Polo, with the assistance of the Top Gear USA presenter Tanner Foust, who also lapped him in the final 30 seconds of the semi-finals in the rallycross, entering James into the Guinness World Records as the first person to get lapped in rallycross.  Following the BBC's decision not to renew Jeremy Clarkson's contract with the show on 25 March 2015, May stated in April 2015 that he would not continue to present Top Gear as part of a new line-up of presenters.

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