London, England - The BBC knew it had to replace one motor-mouth with another and on Tuesday night it announced that Chris Evans will follow in the tyre tracks of his old friend Jeremy Clarkson as Top Gear host.
How Clarkson will feel remains to be seen. Evans was the first person to interview him after his sacking and had insisted that he was not interested in the job.
But that was then and this is now. Last night the 49-year-old radio and TV host - who is also a well-known Ferrari collector - announced he was “thrilled” to sign a three-year-deal to front the troubled show.
“Top Gear is my favourite programme of all time,” he said. “I promise I will do everything I possibly can to respect what has gone on before and take the show forward.”
Production on the new series will start in the next few weeks, according to the BBC, although it has not said whether James May and Richard Hammond will continue to co-host the show.
It was reported earlier this month that the pair had been offered £1 million (R19.4 million) contracts to stay with the BBC. However, neither has yet signed.
U-TURN
Evans said: “Top Gear is created by a host of brilliant minds who love cars and understand how to make the massively complicated come across as fun, devil-may-care and effortless - when in fact, of course, it's anything but and that's the genius of Top Gear's global success.”
It is a sharp U-turn for the current host of The One Show and BBC Radio 2's Breakfast Show, who insisted he would “never” host the show, as recently as Friday.
During the resurrection of TFI Friday, Evans and Clarkson, 55, were shown in a car together with the radio presenter driving.
“You're not going to get my old job,” Clarkson told Evans, who responded that he didn't want it and claimed: “I ruled myself out.”
Clarkson then claimed that Evans hadn't been asked to present the show, which has an estimated worldwide audience of 350 million people.
Clarkson will return to screens on 28 June, however, in two Top Gear films shot before he was suspended from the programme and ultimately sacked.
It is likely that his final appearance will bring in the highest-ever UK ratings for the show, which has previously reached a high of 8.4 million when Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton appeared.
The Independent