Evans leaps to defence of new-look Top Gear

Presenter lashes out after missing his own target of 5m viewers

Chris Evans hit out at critics of the revamped Top Gear yesterday, after the first episode attracted the show’s lowest audience for a series launch in a decade.

An estimated 4.4 million people tuned in to the relaunch of the motoring show on Sunday, below the five million target that presenter Evans said would constitute success, making it the lowest series opener since November 2005. Evans defended the show in a series of comments.

CHRIS EVANS hit out at critics of the newly revamped Top Gear yesterday after the first episode was seen by the lowest audience for a series launch in a decade.

Figures released yesterday showed that 4.4 million people watched the relaunch of the motoring show on Sunday night, below the five million target Evans said would constitute success, making it the lowest series opener since November 2005.

The new version received a mixed response from critics, some of whom dubbed it “Flop Gear”, while viewers suggested Evans was “too shouty” and had tried to imitate former presenter Jeremy Clarkson’s hosting style.

However, Evans’s programme was seen by a greater proportion of those watching television on Sunday night, with 23 per cent of viewers switching their sets to BBC Two, compared to the average viewing share of 21 per cent that Clarkson’s last series received.

Evans wrote on Twitter: “The new Top Gear is a hit. OFFICIALLY. 23% audience share. 12% MORE than the opening episode of the last series. These are the FACTS.” In an interview with The

Daily Telegraph before the programme aired, Evans said he hoped the fact that the Monaco Grand Prix was on earlier on Sunday meant that car enthusiasts would already be in front of the television. He said it “would be great if we got five million,” adding: “We’d be really pleased with it. We’re cool with five million. You want a show that grows in audience.”

BBC sources said yesterday that the programme was the most viewed BBC Two show in 2016, and had also already been seen by 500,000 extra viewers on the iPlayer.

Evans has so far recorded two of the six episodes in the series and sources on the show said he would hone the production during later episodes. One executive who works on the programme said: “The engine is chosen for the season, so to speak; now it is all about fine tuning to get the best from that engine.” Sources close to Evans also pointed out that the show achieved a greater audience than the launch episodes of the first six series in which Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May all presented together.

The friend said: “It’s the first show so of course it will bed in. Some people were critical because it was too like the old Top Gear and some people critical because it had changed too much.

“The team need to work out what works and what does not; look at what did work on Extra Gear, the halfhour iPlayer show, and how well that did. The old Top Gear never had that, and that along with so much else is new and needs again to be allowed time to mature.”