James May has said Top Gear needs "a bit of a rethink" after the BBC announced the popular motoring show will not return for the "foreseeable future".
"The thing about Top Gear is... it does need a bit of a rethink'
— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) November 22, 2023
Former presenter James May gives his reaction to Nick & Amol following the news the show won't return for the foreseeable future.
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The show's former co-host told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "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 was invented.
"And it would be a shame if an organisation like the BBC didn't have something to say about it."
When asked what that new format could involve, May said he and his former co-presenters Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond "already do" a Top Gear-style show on Prime Video.
The trio created The Grand Tour after leaving Top Gear in 2015.
"I'm not saying I know what it is, but there must be one," May said.
"There must be another way of doing a show about cars that will embrace more fulsomely many of the questions being asked of cars that weren't being asked of cars."
May said this could involve a "greater scrutiny" of cars, including the way the vehicles are powered.
"You could still do that in an entertaining and informative kind of way," he told Today.
Production of Top Gear has been halted since former England cricket captain Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff was taken to hospital in December 2022 after he was badly injured in an accident at the Top Gear test track at Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey.
Following the crash, the BBC announced that it would pause production on the show, co-presented by Take Me Out host Paddy McGuinness and automotive journalist Chris Harris, as it was felt it would be "inappropriate", adding there would be a health and safety review.
In a statement given to the PA news agency on Tuesday, the BBC said it is "excited about new projects being developed" with the current presenting line-up of Flintoff, McGuinness and Harris.
In addition, BBC Studios said the health and safety production review of Top Gear, which did not cover the accident but looked at previous seasons, found that there were "important learnings which would need to be rigorously applied to future Top Gear UK productions".
Source: Press Association
