British icon James May has said that Top Gear needs a rethink following the show’s cancellation.
During an interview with BBC Today, former Top Gear host James May said he thinks the popular motoring show needs to go back to the drawing board.
“My honest view is — I can say this now — it does need a bit of a rethink,” he said. “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.”
May hosted Top Gear for over a decade alongside Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond. However, the trio left after Clarkson was sacked by the BBC after his infamous “fracas” with one of the show’s producers.
Clarkson, Hammond, and May then went on to sign a lucrative deal with Amazon, creating their own rival motoring show, The Grand Tour. However, Top Gear proved difficult to revive following the high-profile exit of its charismatic hosts. The show replaced Clarkson in 2015 with British radio presenter Chris Evans, who quit the show the following year after just six episodes.
Top Gear also turned to some more well-known faces to host the popular show, with Friends star Matt LeBlanc climbing into the driving seat. Most recently, the show featured former international cricketer, Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff, who has hosted the show since 2019.
However, Top Gear was canceled on Tuesday following a crash that saw Flintoff seriously injured in a 124mph collision. “I’ve only met Freddie once or twice but it’s obviously more serious than we all thought,” said May about Flintoff’s accident.
However, he added that he won’t be heading back to ‘fix’ Top Gear following the crash, despite fans' suggestions. “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,'” said May. “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.'”
Want to read more about Top Gear? Check out the 18 TV stars who were fired for unacceptable behavior.
Image credit: Photo by Mark Milan/GC Images
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
