The previous Top Gear speaker Chris Harris has actually stated he revealed safety and security problems to the BBC 3 months prior to the auto accident that left Andrew Flintoff with face injuries and damaged ribs.
The previous England cricketer, 46, was driving an open-topped three-wheel automobile when it turned and moved along the track at Dunsfold aerodrome, Surrey, in December 2022.
The BBC introduced in 2015 it had “rested” Top Gear, which had actually been running considering that 2002, for the direct future after Flintoff’s mishap and paid ₤ 9m in payment to him.
Speaking to the United States podcaster Joe Rogan, Harris asserted he advised the BBC that there might be a “serious injury” or “fatality” if safety and security treatments were not altered.
The 49-year-old stated: “What was never spoken about was that three months before the accident, I’d gone to the BBC and said: ‘Unless you change something, someone’s going to die on this show.’
“I told them of my concerns from what I’d seen. As the most experienced driver on the show by a mile. I said: ‘If we carry on, at the very least we’re going to have a serious injury, at the very worst we’re going to have a fatality.’”
BBC Studios, that made Top Gear, has actually described an independent examination in 2023 that located it had actually adhered to market ideal technique yet that there were “learnings which would need to be rigorously applied” if the program returned.
Harris stated his 2 co-presenters, Flintoff– called Freddie– and Paddy McGuinness, were “brilliant entertainers” yet “didn’t have the experience I had in cars” and were not “qualified to make decisions”.
Speaking concerning Flintoff’s mishap, Harris stated: “He wasn’t wearing a crash helmet. And if you do that, even at 25, 30 miles an hour, the injuries that you sustain are profound.”
He included: “I remember the radio message that I heard. I heard someone say this has been a real accident here. The car’s upside down. So I ran to the window, looked out and he wasn’t moving.
“[Flintoff] wasn’t moving, so I thought he was dead. I assumed he was, then he moved. He’s a physical specimen, Fred. He’s a big guy … six-foot five, six-foot six … strong. And if he wasn’t so strong, he wouldn’t have survived.”
In a declaration in 2015, BBC Studios described an independent health and wellness manufacturing evaluation of Top Gear, which took a look at previous periods of the program.
“[The review] found that while BBC Studios had complied with the required BBC policies and industry best practice in making the show, there were important learnings which would need to be rigorously applied to future Top Gear UK productions,” a representative stated.
“The report included a number of recommendations to improve approaches to safety as Top Gear is a complex programme-making environment routinely navigating tight filming schedules and ambitious editorial expectations – challenges often experienced by long-running shows with an established on- and off-screen team.
“Learnings included a detailed action plan involving changes in the ways of working, such as increased clarity on roles and responsibilities and better communication between teams for any future Top Gear production.”
Flintoff has actually considering that gone back to the general public eye, rejoining the backroom personnel of the England guys’s cricket group for their T20 collection versus the West Indies, and as head instructor of the Northern Superchargers in The Hundred competition. He additionally shot the BBC docudrama Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams on Tour.
