Former 'Top Gear' presenter James May says show needs a ‘rethink’ before returning to BBC

Former 'Top Gear' presenter James May on Wednesday said that show needs “a bit of a rethink”, a day after BBC took the series off air, saying it return “for the foreseeable future".

May, who was speaking on the the BBC’s “Today” podcast, said that the show needs to be revamped whenever it does return. May hosted “Top Gear” alongside Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond for over a decade.

“My honest view is — I can say this now — it does need a bit of a rethink,” May said in the interview. “It’s time for a new format and a new approach to the subject because the subject has not been this interesting, I suspect, since the car has been invented.”


In a statement released on Tuesday, BBC said that Top Gear, one of it's most-watched and revered automobile television shows, will not be coming back to the screen “for the foreseeable future” due to "exceptional circumstances".

As per reports, the decision to not air the show came after one of the hosts and former England cricketer Andrew “Freddy” Flintoff was injured during the shooting of an episode last year.

The incident took place in December 2022 at the show’s test track in the airport called Dunsfold Park Aerodrome situated at Surrey. After the incident the filming of the show was immediately stopped.

In March this year, the BBC made an apology to Flintoff. During the same time they also announced a health and safety review which was to be done by an independent third party organisation.

“I’ve only met Freddie once or twice but it’s obviously more serious than we all thought,” May said, while commenting onof Flintoff’s accident.

May and Hammond left the series in 2015 after Clarkson was fired for punching a producer. Th trio went on to host a new series, “The Grand Tour,” on Amazon Prime Video.

Responding to fans' who want him to "come back and rescue" the show, May: "It did annoy me a bit because there were a lot of people saying, ‘They’ve done that wrong and now you can come back and rescue it,'” May said, adding of Flintoff: “The bloke’s hurt himself very badly in a life-changing way, obviously. And you could perhaps not use it as an opportunity to be partisan. You could perhaps just say, ‘Rotten bit of luck, hope you get well soon.'”

May’s complete interview will be released By BBC on Thursday.