Erin Baker: Top Gear doesn't need petrolheads

To which, my response is: why? Why do you need someone who knows the difference between oversteer and understeer to present a light entertainment programme on mainstream TV about cars? Why is passion about cars not as valid an attribute as knowing about crankshafts? That’s saying that the hundreds of thousands of ordinary motorists who have a passion for cars, love attending events like Goodwood Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard and love their own cars, aren’t knowledgable petrolheads, because they don’t understand what a naturally aspirated engine is. Rubbish.

I gave up watching Top Gear because I couldn’t bear the lack of good banter between Chris Harris, Rory Reid and Matt Le Blanc. There was no chemistry, and with only one presenter who is used to delivering entertainment to millions of people on TV, the dialogue was woeful.

How many of the viewing public care about what goes on under the bonnet, or what the suspension is like? They want to see the cars in action, get some emotional response from the presenters about the cars, have a look at the interiors, listen to the engines and see them all doing some stunts in some crazy locations. End of.

I’m not a fan of Flintoff or McGuinness but they both sound like a better bet than a motoring journalist, for heaven’s sake. If you need decent drivers, you can bring them in on a per-episode basis to wang something round a track. But the scripted studio stuff desperately needs professional presenters: it needed it when Clarkson and team did their “non-scripted”, scripted banter, let alone when Chris Evans then Harris, Reid and Le Blanc took over.

Give Freddie and Paddy a chance; something tells me it might work out.