James May has said he is not willing to return to the Top Gear show without Jeremy Clarkson saying that presenting the show without his erstwhile friend wouldn’t work. Speaking to the Guardian newspaper May said “to do Top Gear without Jeremy, that would be a bit of a daft idea. “. Clarkson wasn’t fired or let go of from the BBC over “fracas-gate” where he gave a Top Gear producer a piece of his mind… And his fist. The BBC simply didn’t renew Clarkson’s contract, the show is without the captain steering the ship which is what prompted James May to jump overboard. May continued “Me and Hammond with a surrogate Jeremy is a non-starter, it just wouldn’t work. That would be lame, or ‘awks’ as young people say,”. “It has to be the three of us. You can’t just put a surrogate Jeremy in and expect it to carry on. It would be forced. I don’t believe they would be stupid enough to try that. “It doesn’t mean I won’t go back, we may all go back in the future. It might just be we have a break from it. I don’t know.” It is not clear what the BBC will do with Top Gear now that two of the shows stars have gone. Richard Hammond hasn’t said much but it is expected he will follow both Clarkson and May. The current speculation is that the BBC is lining up three new presenters. It was initially assumed that May and Hammond would resume their Top Gear presenting duties with a different third host for every show. However Top Gear may well be off the air for the next year or so as the BBC hopes the internal discontent dies down by which time the three could be reunited. May continued, “In the future when all this has blown over there might be an opportunity for three of us to get back together on the BBC to do Top Gear or a car show of some sort,” said May. “The BBC haven’t completely closed the door on Jeremy’s return. They’ve not banned him or fired him, only just not renewed his contract for the moment. It’s a subtle difference but an important one.” James May will continue broadcasting programmes for the BBC, and the BBC has also hinted that Jeremy Clarkson could also return, the broadcaster hasn’t banned Clarkson. Meanwhile Top Gear’s influential executive producer and school friend of Jeremy Clarkson, Andy Willman, has just quit the BBC, a sign perhaps that Clarkson has already signed a deal to do something, somewhere at sometime. Could Clarkson return to the show in the near future? That’s anyone’s guess. For now James May is running a successful YouTube channel.