Top Gear's former executive producer has said the BBC has lost an "editorial genius" in Jeremy Clarkson - and called the decision to axe him a "tragedy".

Andy Wilman has written an article for the latest issue of Top Gear magazine after quitting the long-running series in the wake of Clarkson's departure.

In it, Mr Wilman laments the decision to axe Clarkson and tells the story of how the motor show came to be developed in its current form.

He revealed that in around 2001, the then-controller of BBC2, Jane Root, had decided to axe Top Gear.

Clarkson arranged to meet Mr Wilman to discuss his ideas to revive the show.


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Mr Wilman wrote: "And as I sit here now in April 2015, in a completely empty office, I think that faraway lunch absolutely encapsulates the tragedy of what the BBC has lost in getting rid of Jeremy.

"It hasn't just lost a man who can hold viewers' attention in front of a camera, it's lost a journalist who could use the discipline of print training to focus on what mattered and what didn't; it's lost an editorial genius who could look at an existing structure and then smash it up and reshape it in a blaze of light-bulb moments."

Mr Wilman said that while searching for presenters, the BBC was "adamant a woman should be in the line-up".

He said: "Their theory behind a female presenter was that if you want women to watch something, you need women presenting it."

The producer said that he and Clarkson "auditioned lots of excellent girls who were more than up to the job of presenting a car show".

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But the pair "already started to realise that bloke banter was going to become an important part of the show".

And so, on their insistence, Ms Root allowed them to have an all male line-up.

Wilman also recalled how Richard Hammond's original audition tape featured the presenter "doing a terrible car review while dressed for some reason as Batman".

He said that Clarkson had initially wanted to call the show's anonymous racing driver The Gimp, after the character in Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction.

But after hiring original team member Perry McCarthy, he refused to be called The Gimp, and so they agreed on The Stig.