Jason Manford discusses Freddie Flintoff after Top Gear accident
Jeremy Clarkson has shot down the idea of buying the rights to Top Gear after a BBC executive said that the idea of returning to filming Top Gear would be “really inappropriate” as current co-host, Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff, continues to recover from his accident.
Freddie, who fronts the show with Paddy McGuinness and Chris Harris, was involved in an incident at the Top Gear test track last year in December while filming the motoring TV programme at Dunsfold Aerodrome.
Jeremy wrote in his recent column for The Sun that Top Gear “has to be saved” after it was rumoured the show could be cancelled.
Fans have hoped the show could potentially see the return of its original iconic trio – Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.
Taking to Twitter, one fan asked Jeremy if there was any chance of him swooping in to save the day.
They wrote: “@JeremyClarkson @RichardHammond @MrJamesMay.
“Now that Top Gear is cancelled, is there a chance you can buy the naming rights and maybe return as a trio??? please.. pretty please?”
Responding to the tweet last week, Jeremy answered: “Er. We never went away. The three of us are still very much at it.”
Currently, Clarkson, Hammond and May work together on their Amazon Prime Video series, The Grand Tour.
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When the programme was launched, it followed a similar format to that of Top Gear between 2016 and 2019, including car reviews and timed laps, motoring challenges and races, studio segments, and celebrity guests, with the team using a studio within a large tent during this time.
In its first series, the tent was located at different locations across the globe, before taking a fixed site within the Cotswolds, near Jeremy’s home based on Diddly Squat Farm.
Episodes were released weekly to Amazon Prime Video accounts, and repeats of the first series were made available on traditional broadcasters in late 2017.
At the conclusion of the third series, the production team switched out of this format, and towards a focus on producing special motoring films for future series, with episodes released at select intervals.
Speaking at a Broadcasting Press Guild event last week, chief content officer at the BBC, Charlotte Moore, said when discussing the future of Top Gear: “My priority at the moment is supporting Freddie through his recovery so I think it would be really inappropriate for us to resume filming now.
“I think when we get to the point where he feels ready … and we’ll get to thinking about getting him back.”
She added: “I think we’ve got to talk about what Freddie wants to do. When someone’s in recovery, I don’t think we would push that … I think that would be really inappropriate, I wouldn’t be happy.
“I think you’ve got to be really human about this and do the right thing.”
The cricketer-turned-presenter was airlifted to hospital on 13 December 2022 after crashing while filming a car review at Dunsfold Park Aerodrome, home of the Top Gear test track.
While insiders claimed at the time that his injuries sustained in the crash were non-life threatening, his 16-year-old son Corey said that the 45-year-old was “lucky to be alive”.
“It was a pretty nasty crash,” he told The Independent.
“It is shocking. We are all shocked but just hope he’s going to be OK.”
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