PALove it or – more likely – hate it, everybody is talking about Top Gear and its brand new series featuring Matt LeBlanc and Chris Evans. And when I say everybody is talking about it, I do mean everybody.
Now, Top Gear co-host and Formula One connoisseur, Eddie Jordan, has lashed out at the show’s former hosts, saying that in the lead up to Jeremy Clarkson’s departure Top Gear had simply ‘run out of juice’, reports the Huffington Post.
Clarkson was infamously sacked from the hit petrol-headed show last year following a highly publicised bust up with Irish producer Oison Tymon whom Clarkson allegedly attacked and racially abused.
BBCHis fellow hosts, Richard Hammond and James May, also left the show in the weeks which followed.
Talking about the show’s final years, new co-host, Eddie Jordan, said:
I’m a big fan of what [Clarkson] did in the past but I have to be honest and tell it like it is.
Jeremy and the other guys had a very successful past but the point is – it is in the past and Jeremy is past it when it comes to ‘Top Gear’. His time has come and gone. There has been too much time spent focusing on them – but it was a very different show then.
I personally felt the old show had run out of juice and our version is much, much better and will ultimately be more successful.
BBCHe also stood up for the show’s new host, Chris Evans, adding:
Chris has done a brilliant job in difficult circumstances. What Chris is attempting is something different and better. He hasn’t got to panic. He has got to believe in himself.
He has got to find something inside – like we used to urge our racing drivers. We used to want them to become more arrogant.
That is what Chris needs to find – he has got to arrogantly believe this programme will be better, will be better run, will be more diverse and different. It will be a must-watch show.
BBCHowever, at the moment, most people really don’t believe that Top Gear will ever be what Jordan called a ‘must-watch show’. In fact, they believe quite the opposite.
Top Gear returns on BBC2 tonight at 8pm.
