Simon Cowell says he would have been 'amazing' Top Gear presenter

'Chris Evans wouldn’t have been my choice but good luck to them'

Chris Evans has taken another blow in his brief tenure asTop Gear presenter after Simon Cowell claimed he would have been a better choice for the role.

“I would have been amazing,” Cowell told the Daily Star.

“Chris Evans wouldn’t have been my choice but good luck to them. I think you’ve got to have someone who can actually drive a car. That’s really important.”

A source close to the X Factor judge told the newspaper: “Simon would have loved to have been the new Top Gear host and would have been brilliant.

“The only issue would have been finding time in his diary but he is considering his own format.”

Evans has received criticism for his performance as the successor to Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, after claims that he had to pause filming due to car sickness.

It has also been reported that the TFI Friday and Radio 2 presenter threatened to quit the show because of 'meddling' BBC bosses.

May, who quit the show with Hammond after Clarkson was dismissed for a 'fracas' with producer Oisin Tymon, has spoken up in support of the new presenter.

“I’d like like to see Chris’s Top Gear do well,” he told Radio Times. “It’s a ballsy call to continue it. I wouldn’t want to be the one presenting it when we’d just finished, but there must be a way of re-inventing it."