Freddie Flintoff may ‘never return’ to host Top Gear after horror crash

Andrew Flintoff may never return to host the BBC show, Top Gear, after he was hospitalised following filming, sources suggest.

The former England and Lancashire cricketer, from Preston, was filming at Top Gear’s test track at Dunsfold Park Aerodrome, in Surrey, back in mid December 2022 when he was involved in an accident and sustained injuries that required him to be airlifted to hospital for treatment.

His injuries were not said to be life-threatening, and it was confirmed that the accident did not happen at high speed. 

Sources close to the television personality have suggested that Freddie may quit the series ‘for good’ after a horror crash at the end of last year has apparently left him ‘psychologically traumatised’.

His friends revealed to The Time that the 45-year-old was making a good recovery physically following the crash, but that the psychological impact was less clear at this time.

The BBC explained what happened at the time of the accident in a statement, saying: “Freddie was injured in an accident at the Top Gear test track this morning, with crew medics attending the scene immediately [and] he has been taken to hospital for further treatment.

“We will confirm more details in due course.”

This is not the first time Flintoff has been involved in an accident since he began presenting the long-running BBC programme back in 2019, alongside co-hosts Paddy McGuinness and Chris Harris.

He also crashed into a market stall in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, in February 2019, and then in September of the same year, he also crashed during a drag race while he was filming at Elvington Airfield in Yorkshire – the latter in which he walked away from unharmed.

Long standing fans of the show will remember that former Top Gear presenter, Richard Hammond, also crashed at the same airfield track in a high-speed accident in 2006, which left him in a coma for a period of time while he made a full recovery from a brain injury.

After retiring from international cricket in 2010, Flintoff ventured into TV where he became part of Sky’s, A League of Their Own, and was also a contestant on the Australian version of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!, where he was crowned king of the jungle.

Trying his hand at acting, he has also appeared in BBC drama Love, Lies and Records in 2017 – and singing in Fat Friends The Musical too.