Former Friends star says YouTubers Chris Harris and Rory Reid have skills to bring to show ahead of its relaunch on Sunday

Top Gear’s Matt LeBlanc has defended the show’s new presenting lineup ahead of its relaunch on Sunday, calling the members of the refreshed cast a “Swiss army knife” who have “a certain skill set”.

The former Friends star is to host the BBC2 show with Chris Harris and Rory Reid as his co-presenters for its second season since the departure of Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond.

Motoring journalist Harris joined the show last year after becoming known for his YouTube channel, Chris Harris on Cars, which he launched in 2014.

Talking about the presenting lineup, Harris, 42, said: “The great issue with this reboot of Top Gear has been the word chemistry because you can’t just create chemistry, you can’t just say: ‘Right, you three do chemistry’.”

'So boring it barely exists': readers review the new Top Gear Read more

He added: “The guys before us had a long time, they had a decade to generate chemistry, so we’ve been under pressure to do that, but we are, we’d like to think, moderately intelligent people with a view of the world and bit of banter, and that’s what you want, isn’t it?”

LeBlanc, 49, last year hosted the motoring programme alongside Chris Evans, who quit after one series following plummeting ratings and poor reviews, saying he had given it his best shot but it was “not enough”.

“You can please some people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time,” LeBlanc said of the show’s critics as he promoted the 24th series at the BBC Worldwide Showcase. “There’s going to be people who like it and there’s going to be people who don’t like it. Our job in my opinion is to make the best show we can possibly make.”

Reid, 37, who is also a motoring journalist and won the public vote last year to join the show, was joined by Harris in saying their YouTube background had prepared them for any criticism.

Harris said: “We knew what we were undertaking when we signed up to it. We’re following three of the best people that have ever worked in my industry. I’m a motoring journalist just like they are. I hugely admire them, so we knew this was going to be difficult.

“Some of the things that are said are unkind, but we come from a YouTube background so if you think TV critics have got teeth, they’ve got nothing on a 14-year-old with a keyboard in Alabama at 4am. You just have to be grown-up about it, don’t you?”

The first episode will see the trio head to Kazakhstan where they are tasked with buying secondhand cars with at least 480,000 miles on the clock to compete in various endurance challenges.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rory Reid, Chris Harris and Matt LeBlanc share a laugh during a break from filming the new series of Top Gear. Photograph: BBC WorldWide/BBC

LeBlanc recently commented on reports that the trio had eaten horse penis while filming the episode, insisting “nothing below the belt” was consumed.

Reid has said filming in Kazakhstan was a highlight because it “brought us all together really nicely”.

“We were in this very unusual place, miles away from home and for the three of us it was the first time we’d actually stood together in front of the camera on location,” said Reid.

“We had no idea what was going to happen or how it was going to turn out, but through that week of shooting I think we ended up doing so many incredible things together, like challenges and races, and having that culminate in this amazing thing at the end of the adventure, I think that brought us all together really nicely.”

During the course of the new series, viewers will also get to see them slip behind the wheel of some impressive cars, including a Bugatti Chiron, described on the French luxury manufacturer’s website as “the world’s most powerful, fastest, most luxurious and most exclusive production super sports car”.

Car enthusiasts will also see them driving a Ferrari FXX K, of which there are only 40 in the world. Harris said: “You’d expect to get one if you were lucky, one uber, hyper, porno crazy super car. We’ve got three in this series and that is mega.”

Flashy horsepower aside, LeBlanc joked that they “also get to drive some of the absolute worst shit boxes, which is also fun”.

LeBlanc said he developed a soft spot for the used cars they purchased in Kazakhstan. “When it was all over we all developed a fondness for those vehicles and it was kind of sad to see them go.”