While Jeremy Clarkson and his merry team of co-presenters (Richard “Hamster†Hammond; James “Captain Slow†May) are making that Friends money over at Amazon, the BBC is revamping their iconic motoring series Top Gear with a quartet of relatively unknown people — for this side of the pond, anyway. Racing driver Sabine Schmitz and motoring journalist Chris Harris will join veteran TV-presenter Chris Evans (no, not that Chris Evans) and ex–Formula One driver David Coulthard in the new series, according to Deadline. The new Top Gear will likely go grill-to-grill against the formidable trio’s Amazon show, and it’ll be interesting to see which show emerges triumphant, and what the subsequent cornucopia of thinkpieces will make of all of it.
The departure of Clarkson, May, and Hammond from the BBC comes after a highly-publicized “fracas†between Clarkson and a producer earlier this year, for which Clarkson was later fired. May and Hammond soon followed suit and were later signed by Amazon for the new motoring program. We can only hope the trio will be up for their classic, epic, and hilarious tricks once the new series debuts: