Bitter Clarkson brands Top Gear hosts LeBlanc & Co ‘part-timers’

SACKED by the BBC in 2015 after punching a producer for failing to provide a hot dinner and now earning £9.6million from his Amazon show, The Grand Tour star Jeremy Clarkson cannot resist cocking a snook at his old employers.

The outspoken presenter says he still hasn’t seen the rebooted Top Gear since his expulsion and that his successor Matt LeBlanc and his BBC rivals will never succeed as long as they are part- timers. Clarkson says the ex-Friends star LeBlanc should emulate his work ethic if he wants to revitalise the show. ‘You have to learn how to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can’t have another job. It’s bloody hard work.’

American actor LeBlanc took

over the series after his co-presenter chris evans quit after one season following a ratings slide. he was the first non-British presenter of the show in its 39-year history.

clarkson, 57, and hammond, 47, have certainly suffered for their art. hammond has cheated death twice after being involved in two serious motoring accidents.

explaining why he hasn’t bothered to watch Top Gear, clarkson adds: ‘In the same way that when somebody has a baby adopted they don’t go and peer through the window of their new house. That’s really what if feels like to me.

‘That was my baby and it got taken away and I don’t particularly want to see what its new parents are doing with it. They’ll probably go and look on the internet who it’s real father is.’

There is clearly no love lost between clarkson and Danny cohen, the exBBc director of television, who clashed repeatedly with the former Top Gear presenter and ended up sacking him.

‘I don’t know where he is now,’ sniffs clarkson. ‘Danny used to object if your shoes weren’t clean.’

A spokesman for the BBc tells me: ‘The Top Gear team are unable to comment as they are currently hard at work filming the new series abroad.’