A TOP Gear star who was involved in an ‘unavoidable’ Wye Valley crash in a Porsche 911 six years ago has broken his silence on the Freddie Flintoff accident.

Chris Harris, who lives in Monmouthshire and runs a motoring media production company in the Forest of Dean, says he warned the BBC about safety three months before the former England cricket star's almost fatal crash.

The former racing driver told a motoring podcast he had raised concerns of a "serious injury" or "fatality" if safety procedures were not tightened.

Harris himself suffered a collision on the Wye Valley road near Tintern in 2018, when the £110,000 Porsche he was driving collided with a pick-up truck doing a three-point turn on a bend on the A466 near Tintern.

And he told the Joe Rogan podcast in relation to Flintoff's 2022 high speed Top Gear accident: "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'...

"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.

"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'."

Harris said his two co-presenters, Flintoff and Paddy McGuinness were "brilliant entertainers" but "didn't have the experience I had in cars" and were not "qualified to make decisions".

Flintoff was driving a three-wheeled Morgan supercar when he sustained serious facial injuries and broken ribs in the crash.

Harris said: "He wasn't wearing a crash helmet. And if you do that, even at 25, 30 miles an hour, the injuries you sustain are profound.

"It's a very difficult car. You have to be aware of its limitations. And I think that really was difficult, and you need experience.

"There were two people that had driven a Morgan three-wheeler before that day – me and a pro driver.

"And we were sitting inside at that time. No one had asked us about the car. They'd just gone on and shot it without us."

Alerted to the crash, he added: "I remember the radio message...

“I heard someone say this has been a real accident here. The car’s upside down. So I ran to the window, looked out and he wasn't moving.

"[Flintoff] wasn't moving, so I thought he was dead. I assumed he was, then he moved.

"He’s a physical specimen, Fred, he's a big guy – six foot five, six foot six, strong. And if he wasn't so strong, he wouldn't have survived.

"He's a great advert for physical strength and conditioning, because if he hadn't been that strong, he'd have just snapped his neck, he'd be dead."

Responding to the claims, BBC Studios, who produced Top Gear, referred to an independent Health and Safety production review of the show.

"[The review] found that while BBC Studios had complied with the required BBC policies and industry best practice in making the show, there were important learnings which would need to be rigorously applied to future Top Gear UK productions," a spokesman said.

“The report included a number of recommendations to improve approaches to safety as Top Gear is a complex programme-making environment routinely navigating tight filming schedules and ambitious editorial expectations – challenges often experienced by long-running shows...

"Learnings included a detailed action plan involving changes in the ways of working, such as increased clarity on roles and responsibilities and better communication between teams.”

Harris, a director of a motoring media production company in the Forest of Dean, is due to present a new BBC road trip series with fellow Top Gear presenter Paddy McGuinness.