The BBC has confirmed that Celebrity Race Across The World will return to screens on Wednesday 28 October at 8pm on BBC One and iPlayer, Radio Times reported, with a fresh trailer giving viewers their first glimpse of what promises to be the most ambitious series yet. Four famous pairings are about to swap red carpets for jungle tracks, racing 7,500 kilometres from the rainforests of Borneo to the finish line in Melbourne, Australia, according to the BBC's announcement.
The fourth series of the BAFTA-winning show replaces the Repair Shop spin-off Beyond the Barn in the Wednesday-night slot, with its final episode airing on 21 October. Produced by Studio Lambert, the celebrity edition has become one of the BBC's biggest reality hits — and this year's journey takes the teams further from the UK than any previous series.
The Melbourne skyline across Albert Park Lake
Melbourne's skyline — the destination waiting at the end of the 7,500km journey. (Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
The four pairs
The confirmed line-up mixes singers, broadcasters, and reality royalty. Junior and Princess — the children of Katie Price and Peter Andre — race as siblings, bringing a younger audience with them, TellyMix reported. Brit Award-winning singer-songwriter Ella Eyre takes part with her childhood friend Nana, while sports broadcaster Jeff Stelling swaps the football studio for the road alongside his son Matt. Completing the cast is singer Sam Ryder, who teams up with his best friend and tour manager Kaz.
The relationships are deliberately varied — sibling, parent-and-child, lifelong friendship, and working partnership — setting up the interpersonal dynamics that have made the show appointment television. As the BBC's tease puts it: "Leaving luxury behind them, these household names will be tested. Emotions will run high, and relationships will be transformed on an adventure as challenging as it is rewarding."
No phones, no cards, £26 a day
The rules are brutally simple and identical for every team. No smartphones. No credit cards. A budget of just £26 per person per day — £52 per pair — to cover everything: transport, food, and somewhere to sleep. Contestants navigate with a paper map and must rely on local buses, trains, and ferries, plus the kindness of strangers willing to offer a lift or a spare bed.
Strategy matters as much as stamina. Choosing the wrong bus, missing a ferry, or splurging on a hotel can end a team's hopes in a single day. And for the celebrity pairs, fame cuts both ways: a famous face can open doors — or attract a crowd that slows you down. The teams that thrive are usually the ones that plan carefully, stay calm under pressure, and treat every stranger as a potential ally.
A 7,500km journey across three countries and two continents
The race begins in Kuching, the capital of the Malaysian state of Sarawak in north-west Borneo, described by the BBC as the gateway to the island's vast wilderness. From there the teams travel through prehistoric jungles and the heartlands of Borneo, crossing five checkpoints across three countries and two continents before reaching the finish in Melbourne — a full breakdown of the route shows just how punishing the itinerary is.
It is a first for the show in more than one way: the journey has never previously reached Australia, and the Borneo start makes it the most formidable race the celebrity teams have faced. Unlike their counterparts on the civilian edition — this year's regular series was won by Jo Diop and Kush Burman — the celebrities arrive with famous faces that can be both a blessing and a burden when begging lifts and beds.
The trailer and the Wednesday-night slot
The newly released trailer gives the first taste of what's coming: jungle treks, tearful checkpoint reunions, and the familiar race-against-the-clock tension as the pairs hurtle toward Melbourne, as previewed by WhereToWatch. The series takes over the Wednesday 8pm slot from Beyond the Barn, the Repair Shop spin-off whose final episode aired on 21 October — a sign of how highly the BBC rates the format, TV Zone UK noted.
With the broadcast just a week away, fan speculation is already building over which pairing will gel and which will fracture. The BBC's tease — that emotions will run high and relationships will be transformed — has become something of a tradition, and previous series have delivered on it every time.
How the show became a BBC phenomenon
Since its launch, Celebrity Race Across The World has quietly become one of the corporation's most reliable ratings performers. The previous celebrity series drew enormous audiences — the broader celebrity-reality genre continues to deliver for BBC One — and last year's edition was won by Roman Kemp and his sister Harleymoon after a tense finale. Earlier winners include broadcaster Alex Beresford with his father Noel in 2023, and Scott Mills with his husband Sam Vaughan in 2024.
The format's appeal lies in its stripping away of celebrity artifice. Contestants cannot buy their way out of trouble, and the music and atmosphere of each episode owe everything to genuine exhaustion, argument, and elation rather than manufactured drama. It is reality television at its most elemental — a travelogue, a game show, and a relationship study all at once.
What the commissioners promise
Jasmyn McGuile, commissioning editor at BBC Factual Entertainment and Events, said audiences had long been asking when the race might reach Australia, adding that the adventurous start in Borneo's Sarawak rainforest — another first for the show — made for an unmissable opener for this year's celebrity teams.
The entertainment landscape this autumn is crowded — from record-breaking live events to celebrity documentaries — but few formats combine high-stakes competition with genuine cultural immersion quite like this one. The question, as ever, is which pairing will work best together when the budget runs low, the bus doesn't come, and Melbourne is still thousands of kilometres away.
The wait is nearly over: with one week until the first episode, the newly released trailer offers a taste of the arguments, the generosity of strangers, and the sheer scale of the journey to come.
