The BBC has announced its decision to rest the UK show, "Top Gear," stating the show will not be returning to TV “for the foreseeable future” following the 2022 crash involving the presenter Freddie Flintoff.
The decision to remove the motoring show off screens came after the findings of an external BBC health and safety investigation were reported. The findings will not be disclosed publicly. A separate health and safety report, which analyzed previous series of "Top Gear" found that “there were important learnings” for the way the program was produced. The BBC apologized to the presenter and reached a financial settlement with him reportedly in the region of £9 million.
The presenter has been seen publicly with facial injuries, while his legal team told the Sun that he was still recovering from “life-altering injuries." The former England cricket captain turned broadcaster was taken to hospital by air ambulance last December after the high-speed crash at Dunsfold Park Aerodrome in Surrey, which has featured regularly in the BBC show since 2002.
Flintoff joined BBC One’s "Top Gear" as a host in 2019 alongside McGuinness and Harris. Their most recent series attracted an average audience of 4.5 million viewers. The BBC added it “remains committed to Freddie, Chris and Paddy, who have been at the heart of the show’s renaissance since 2019, and we’re excited about new projects being developed with each of them.
He is the not first severe accident to have affected the health of a presenter. Richard Hammond, who presented the series alongside Jeremy Clarkson and James May in the 2000s and early 2010s, was severely injured at York’s Elvington airfield in 2006 when a dragster he was driving spun while travelling at 288mph. Doctors described him as having suffered a “significant brain injury” after the accident. He had been driving the jet-propelled vehicle in an attempt to break the British land speed record. He spent a fortnight in a coma.
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