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Chris Evans favourite to replace Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear: Who are the other contenders?

As Clarkson's exit is confirmed we look at the potential candidates who could fill his shoes

Wednesday 25 March 2015 13:18 GMT

BBC presenter Chris Evans is the favourite to replace Clarkson on Top Gear should the presenter be suspended (Getty Images)

Chris Evans has been tipped as the favourite to replace Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear following his sacking by the BBC.

However, the radio host has dismissed the rumours as "absolute nonsense", adding that the chances of him replacing the presenter was "never going to happen".

But anyone ready to step into Clarkson’s shoes surely must possess certain qualities if fans of the hit motoring show are going to feel like he never left.

Here’s just a few of the possible contenders:

Chris Evans

Chris Evans has dismissed claims he will replace Clarkson

Current job: Part-time One Show host and full-time Radio 2 breakfast presenter

Age: 48

Key Skills: A charismatic figurehead who has been on the media circuit even longer than Clarkson. He's also a Tory supporter and owns a vintage Ferrari so would be well suited to fill Clarkson's shoes.

Nigel Farage

British politician Nigel Farage (Twitter/Dave Weigel)

Current job: Leader of UKIP

Age: 50

Key skills: Admits he is like Marmite but has a thick skin. Racist ‘jokes’ inevitable to make Clarkson’s N-word and “slope” scandals look tame.

Katie Hopkins

Controversial TV personality Katie Hopkins (Channel 5)

Current job: Media commentator and reality TV star

Age: 40

Key skills: Famous for being 'the most hated woman in Britain'. Incredible ability to spark outrage with everything she says, even more so than Clarkson. One of his biggest fans. She is a woman though…shock horror.

Piers Morgan

Former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan

Current job: Journalist

Age: 49

Key skills: Loves the sound of his voice (in real life and on Twitter). Fan of the jeans and a suit jacket look. Ready to do almost anything to get one up on Clarkson.

Danny Dyer

EastEnders fan favourite Danny Dyer

Current job: Actor on EastEnders

Age: 37

Key skills: Loudmouth. Fan favourite for his larger-than-life personality. Sure to dominate Top Gear in much the same way Clarkson has done.

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

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1/26Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

"Short people. When you've finished using a car, put the f**king seat back, so humans can use it afterwards," he posted on Twitter. Offensively.

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

"Honestly, the burka doesn’t work. I was in a cab in Piccadilly the other day when a woman in a full burka crossing the road in front of me tripped over the pavement, went head over heels and up it came, red G-string and stockings."

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

Driving a Jaguar round a toilet in India: "This is perfect for India because everyone who comes here gets the trots."

Getty

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

"The only person who looked good in a 4-seated convertible was Adolf Hitler."

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

As a Thai man walked over a bridge he had built during a Top Gear challenge: "That is a proud moment - but there’s a slope on it."

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

On the Ferrari F430 Speciale: "it was a bit wrong ... that smiling front end ... it looked like a simpleton ... [it] should have been called the 430 Speciale needs."

Getty Images

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

On the Renault Clio V6 handling bends: "In typical French fashion it just gives up! A bit like the French did with the Germans."

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

"I'm thinking. If you had gone to the trouble of making a chemical bomb, why would you detonate it on a coach from Preston?"

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

On public sector workers in 2011: “I’d have them all shot. I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families.”

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

"I don't understand bus lanes. Why do poor people have to get to places quicker than I do?"

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

"The only reason the Arabs and Jews have managed to keep their nasty little war going for 50 years is because it never bloody rains there. If the post-war powers had put Israel in Manchester, there'd have been no bloodshed."

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

"If all the creatures on earth were the same size, it's said a lobster would have the smallest brain. But then someone invented Wayne Rooney."

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

On the invention of the segway: "They're made in America, of course, so fat Yanks can go to the fridge without expending any energy."

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

"Supercars are supposed to run over Arthur Scargill and then run over him again for good measure. They are designed to melt ice caps, kill the poor, poison the water table, destroy the ozone layer, decimate indigenous wildlife, recapture the Falkland Islands and turn the entire third world into a huge uninhabitable desert, all that before they nicked all the oil in the world."

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

"I’m sorry, but having an Aston Martin DB9 on the drive and not driving it is a bit like having Keira Knightley in your bed and sleeping on the couch. If you’ve got even half a scrotum it’s not going to happen."

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

On a caravaning holiday: “You aren’t allowed to have a party, you aren’t allowed to have music, you aren’t allowed to play ball games, you aren’t allowed to have a camp fire, you have to park within two feet of a post, you have to keep quiet, you have to be in bed by eleven. This is not a holiday, it’s a concentration camp!”

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

"Britain’s nuclear submarines have been deemed unsafe… probably because they don’t have wheel-chair access."

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

“If we are being honest HIV is a pathetic virus, it can only live in the air for 6 seconds and it does what ebola does to you in 10 days in 10 years.”

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

On the Lotus Elise: “This car is more fun than the entire french air force crashing into a firework factory.”

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

On actress Sarah Jessica Parker: “People think ‘oh she must be pretty’. She isn’t – she looks like a boiled horse."

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

On Liverpool: "People up there earn less, die more quickly, have fewer jobs and live in houses that are worth the square root of sod all."

Getty Images

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

On the BMW Z3: "And if you are clinically insane, by which I mean you wake up in the morning and think you are an onion, here’s your car."

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

On the Ferrari 430 Scuderia: “It’s like God having really unusual sex… it should come with toilet roll.”

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

"The problem is that television executives have got it into their heads that if one presenter on a show is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed heterosexual boy, the other must be a black Muslim lesbian."

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

"If you're thinking of coming to America, this is what it's like: you've got your Comfort Inn, you've got your Best Western, and you've got your Red Lobster where you eat. Everybody's very fat, everybody's very stupid and everybody's very rude - it's not a holiday programme, it's the truth."

Jeremy Clarkson's Top 25 Most Obnoxious Lines

On the N-word row: "I’ve been told by the BBC that if I make one more offensive remark, anywhere, at any time, I will be sacked."

PA

Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry is a less obvious choice to replace Clarkson

Current job: Actor and presenter

Age: 57

Key skills: Big ego. Extreme intelligence, which would “change the dynamic a touch” as some Twitter users are noting.

Jeremy Paxman

Jeremy Paxman would certainly tear the cars to pieces

Current job: Broadcaster

Age: 64

Key skills: Sure, he’s not exactly bidding for a slot on Top Gear, but having the same name as Clarkson has got to count for something. Famous for his aggressive interviewing style, he would no doubt enjoy passing harsh judgement on the cars and guests alike after leaving Newsnight.

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