Top Gear's Chris Harris says he warned BBC someone could be killed before Freddie Flintoff's horror crash

Virgin Radio

6 Sep 2024, 15:37

Former Top Gear presenter Chris Harris has said he told the BBC “unless you change something, someone’s going to die” several months before Freddie Flintoff experienced his horror crash while filming for the programme.

Speaking on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, the journalist and racing driver opened up in detail about his co-star’s crash, explaining how he believes if Flintoff had not been such “a physical specimen” and not “so strong, he wouldn’t have survived.”

Harris explained that he usually would brief Flintoff about difficult drives because of his experience behind the wheel, but for “the first time” he hadn’t had the chance to talk to the cricketer on the day of the crash.

------------------------------------

DON'T MISS:

Married at First Sight UK finally gets a 2024 start date - all the details

Celebrity Race Across the World fans ‘thrilled’ with episode 4 checkpoint results

Call the Midwife series 14 gets major new update as filming continues

------------------------------------

"I find that very difficult to live with," he admitted, "And I feel partly responsible because I didn't get the chance to talk to him."

Flintoff’s crash brought Top Gear’s production to a halt, and later BBC Studios announced the show had been put on pause “for the foreseeable future”.

Speaking with Rogan, Harris revealed he had warned the BBC that he was worried something bad would happen on the show months ahead of Flintoff’s crash. 

“I had seen this coming. There was a big inquiry, a lot of soul-searching, the BBC is good at that. But 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,’” the TV star said.

“I went to the BBC and 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 gonna have a serious injury, at the very worst we're gonna have [a] fatality.'"

Virginradio.co.uk has reached out to BBC Studios for comment on this story. They responded saying they would "not be adding anything further" to a previous statement from the production company regarding a health and safety review which was undertaken on Top Gear seasons 32, 33 and production for 34 (but which did not cover Flintoff's accident).

It reads: “The independent Health and Safety production review of Top Gear, which looked at previous seasons, 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.

“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."

Harris will be returning alongside his and Flintoff’s fellow former Top Gear co-host Paddy McGuinness for a new BBC Studios produced travel series entitled Chris & Paddy: Roadtrip in the near future. Flintoff, meanwhile, has returned to TV with a new docuseries.