Is Eddie Jordan REALLY joining Top Gear?
New reports claim Eddie Jordan – F1 pundit and former F1 team owners – is joining Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc as a new Top Gear host.
This week we learnt that Joey from Friends – Matt LeBlanc – is to be a presenter on Top Gear as the BBC try hard to give Americans a face they might recognise, and now it seems Eddie Jordan – former F1 team owner and pundit – is about to join the TG team as an outlet for his ego now the Beeb has lost F1 coverage to Channel 4.
The report comes from the Radio Times (which is no longer a BBC publication), which declares Jordan is a done deal for Top Gear, and they also reckon the structure of the new Top Gear will be very much the ‘Chris Evans Show’, with the other presenters in supporting roles. Which sort of makes sense.
Try as they might, the Chris Evans team are not going to recreate the chemistry that existed between Clarkson, Hammond and May, so it looks like the new Top Gear will be just like every other show Evans has done: Chris Evans front and centre, and all the rest the supporting cast.
That supporting cast gives the BBC a headline name (Matt LeBlanc), a proper motorsport expert capable of dishing up scoop stories from inside (Eddie Jordan) and a couple of people who really can drive in Chris Harris and Sabine Schmitz.
Of course, Harris and Schmitz haven’t been confirmed by the BBC (and nor has Eddie Jordan despite the RT’s claim) but a Tweet by Evans this week clearly shows Harris at a Top Gear production meeting in the pub (two along from Evans on the left in the Tweet photo below), although Harris could just be lending his driving skills to the equation rather than his face.
@Matt_LeBlanc Welcome but hurry up. You’re late for the weekly TG production meeting. pic.twitter.com/KhNpsEyZI6
— Chris Evans (@achrisevans) February 4, 2016
It all adds up to a ‘Chris Evans on Cars’ show, but does it add up to Top Gear?
We’ll find out on 8 May when the first episode airs, and we may well learn more when the BBC pitch the new Top Gear to 700 programme buyers from around the world later this month to get them to sign on the dotted line.
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terry smith says
personally,i’d give EJ the top spot,and have evans and le blanc as co hosts.After all eddie IS a former F1 team manager so that alone puts him as frontman.