Top Gear presenter Chris Harris today claimed he warned BBC bosses before Freddie Flintoff’s high-speed car crash that someone could be killed on set.
The 49-year-old host, who was on set at the time of the accident which happened during filming for Top Gear, has also said he thought Flintoff had died.
The accident at Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey in December 2022 left the 46-year-old former England cricketer with significant facial and rib injuries.
And racing driver Harris told The Joe Rogan Experience podcast: ‘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.
‘So I went to them, 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.
Top Gear presenters Freddie Flintoff and Chris Harris, seen in a publicity photo for the show
‘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.
‘And I think what happened with Top Gear was I saw repeatedly too many times my two co-hosts who didn’t have the experience I had in cars. This is the critical thing.’
Harris said he was ‘qualified to make those decisions because I’ve done it a long time’, adding: ‘They weren’t. One of them is an actor-comedian. The other guy is a pro cricket player.
‘Brilliant entertainers. They were great hosts. But their roles were to make people laugh. And my role was to tell people what cars were like.’
Ashes winner Flintoff played for Lancashire and featured in 79 Tests, 141 one-day internationals and seven T20s for his country, before retiring in 2010.
He started presenting Top Gear in 2019, and has also appeared on Sky’s A League Of Their Own and won the first series of the Australian version of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!.
Flintoff received a financial settlement from the BBC following the accident at the Top Gear test track, and the corporation announced it had ‘rested’ Top Gear for the foreseeable future.
Then in September last year, Flintoff joined the coaching staff of England’s cricket team in a temporary, unofficial and unpaid capacity and was pictured for the first time with facial injuries.
He rejoined the team’s backroom staff for their T20 series against the West Indies earlier this year and then took a role as head coach of the Northern Superchargers in The Hundred.
Last month, Flintoff spoke about the crash for the first time, saying he struggled with anxiety, experiencing ‘nightmares and flashbacks’ and was ‘crying every two minutes’ after being seriously hurt.
He also revealed he only left his home for medical appointments in the seven months following the accident.
His comments came in a BBC documentary, called Freddie Flintoff’s Field Of Dreams On Tour, which saw the 46-year-old take a group of young people from his home town of Preston on a cricketing tour of India.
In the programme, speaking about the crash for the first time, Flintoff said: ‘I don’t want to sit and feel sorry for myself, I don’t want sympathy, but it’s going from being here for seven months, to going to India.
‘As much as I want to go out and do things, I’ve just not been able to. I’m struggling with my anxiety, I have nightmares, I have flashbacks, it’s been so hard to cope.
‘But I’m thinking if I don’t do something, I’ll never go. I’ve got to get on with it.’
Listen to Chris Harris on the Joe Rogan Experience on Spotify or Apple Music