More nail biting in Celebrity Race Across the World

We now have three episodes of this six-part nail biting competition firmly under our belt, in which a quartet of stars, partnered by a loved one, are racing from Marrakech in Morocco to Tromso in Norway.

McFly drummer Harry Judd and his mum, retired nurse Emma, racing driver and pundit Billy Monger and his sister, Bonny, a make-up artist, All Saints singer-songwriter Mel Blatt and her mum Helene, and weatherman Alex Beresford in the company of his retired engineer dad Noel, have been battling it out to get their noses ahead of the pack.

As the curtain goes up on the fourth instalment, everyone’s budgets are dwindling and the intensity of the race is stepping up as the teams leave western Europe behind.

Current leaders Harry and Emma are the first to learn the next checkpoint is Sarajevo, and are the only ones who decide to travel through Austria.

At the start of the competition, Harry quipped: “You’ve got to balance the competition between your own sanity and comfort. I think you can be a more effective racer if you don’t go out all guns blazing”. But, when he falls ill during this leg, Emma is pushed to her limit by her son’s time keeping and is forced to deliver a few home truths.

In contrast, Alex and his dad Noel are taking the race at a more leisurely pace so they can appreciate the incredible places they are travelling through.

“We are very competitive, but we’re here to enjoy it and see things, different cultures, how people live, explore all the nice things we come across,” Noel said.

A stop at the picturesque Lake Bled in Slovenia offers them a precious moment to reflect on their relationship and the trials and tribulations that come with fatherhood.

“We do get to see each but not really for proper quality time, sometimes it’s very brief, so this is uninterrupted time,” Alex mused.

Billy and younger sister Bonny try to play it ‘cheap and smart’ in this edition, something she was happy to do before the race began. “When it gets to the point where we get to do some work, we’ll take that in our stride and have a bit of fun with it and try to make the most out of it,” she said.

The siblings end up taking on two jobs to help them achieve their goal, and working on a stud farm in Slovenia ignites a poignant conversation about their childhood and Billy’s racing career.

The race is also giving Mel and her mum Helene valuable time together, something they were relishing before the starting gun fired. Sadly, Zadar in Croatia doesn’t turn out to be the sunny beach stop-off Mel was hoping for. Instead, the pair focus on earning enough money to pay for expensive transport that will give them the edge. As Mel admitted: “I love to travel, but I like to travel nicely!”

However, as the fast-paced nature, scale and unpredictability of the race continues, the final sprint into the checkpoint in Sarajevo takes an unexpected turn.