With his multi-million-pound job hanging in the balance, it might have been wise to maintain a dignified silence. But Jeremy Clarkson isn’t one for pulling his punches.

On Thursday night, the Top Gear presenter launched an extraordinary foul-mouthed rant at BBC bosses during a charity gala.

Two weeks after being suspended over claims that he’d punched Oisin Tymon (a 36-year-old Top Gear producer), Clarkson told the audience that he wanted to do one more lap of the show’s racetrack ‘before the f****** b******* sack me’.

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With his multi-million-pound job hanging in the balance, it might have been wise to maintain a dignified silence. But Jeremy Clarkson (pictured with girlfriend Phillipa Sage) isn’t one for pulling his punches

Speaking in North London’s The Roundhouse venue, Clarkson seemed sure he’d already lost his job, telling guests that the driving series ‘was a great show and they’ve f***** it up’.

Before auctioning off the chance for someone to drive ‘one last lap’ for an astonishing £100,000, Clarkson said: ‘I’ll be a bit tearful when I do it, but f*** it, let’s do it. And I’ll drive somebody around in whatever I can get hold of.

'I’m sacked, so it’s probably an Austin Maestro. There was an 18-year waiting list to be in the audience of Top Gear, but the BBC has f***** themselves.’

Regardless of Clarkson’s outburst, his future on the BBC is likely to be decided next week when the Corporation’s internal probe into his ‘fracas’ with Mr Tymon is given to Director-General Tony Hall.

Despite his bloody-minded chutzpah at the charity gala, Clarkson, with those hang-dog jowls and deep, disappointed-looking wrinkles, appeared strained and far older than his 54 years.

After leaving the party alone, he met up with his girlfriend, Phillipa Sage.

Speaking in North London’s The Roundhouse venue on Thursday Clarkson (pictured) seemed sure he’d already lost his job, telling guests that the driving series ‘was a great show and they’ve f***** it up’

In a fascinating image, the couple were pictured together for the first time in years, underscoring how much the presenter has come to rely on her, particularly in recent days.

The leggy blonde former beautician — who has been seen at many Top Gear studio-filming sessions — has been at his side throughout this latest controversy.

She was also seen driving away from his flat one morning earlier this week.

Indeed, with the booze, the blonde and increased levels of bolshiness, it might appear that Clarkson is suffering the classic holy trinity of symptoms of a male mid-life crisis — regardless of the hostilities at the BBC.

As the Mail reported earlier this week, he is poised to take legal action over an extraordinary smear campaign in which his behaviour was compared by someone described as ‘one of the most senior Corporation executives’ with the grotesque paedophile — and former BBC employee — Jimmy Savile.

Clarkson has never kicked his 40-a-day smoking habit, and has a big thirst for rosé wine, with friends saying he’ll happily drink two bottles over lunchtime

His lawyers are calling for a retraction of those comments. Even so, Clarkson is desperately loyal to the BBC and, despite his recent rant, and his fury with that unnamed executive and other faceless managers, wants Top Gear to remain with the Corporation.

He has been so determined to save his job that it is reported he even hammered on Tymon’s door, four days after the fracas — hoping that they could talk over what had happened instead of going through the full BBC rigmarole.

In the event, it seems the producer wouldn’t open the door.

Although Clarkson won’t talk in detail about what happened in the incident that led to his suspension, a friend tells me: ‘There was an argument, but contrary to what has been said, on that day Jeremy had not had a drink.

‘Also, Jeremy reported the incident himself to [director of BBC Television] Danny Cohen. He feels that the BBC has gone too far with smearing him over it, but the aim is to come back to Top Gear.’

One senior figure at the BBC told me there is a growing belief that Clarkson will indeed come back, but that a new producer will be hired to prevent him and his best pal Andy Wilman, currently the executive producer and boss of Tymon, from some of their ‘excesses’.

He said: ‘I think that people do see a way to resolve this, and that is by putting someone strong in to manage the show and manage Clarkson. He is a brilliant broadcaster, everyone can see that.’

In the meantime, Ken MacQuarrie, a BBC man for more than 30 years, has been leading the inquiry into the fracas.

Previously, he investigated how Newsnight falsely accused Lord McAlpine, the former Tory Party treasurer, of involvement in a child-sex scandal.

MacQuarrie is taking his time, and those in the know assume this is to head off any further legal action from Clarkson or Tymon once the decision is announced.

However, even if his suspension is lifted, Clarkson’s woes will not be over.

His relationship with his estranged wife, Francie, is complicated and draining.

What’s more, there are concerns about his health. He has never kicked his 40-a-day smoking habit, and has a big thirst for rosé wine, with friends saying he’ll happily drink two bottles over lunchtime when not working.

Clarkson loves to boast about being and getting drunk — once saying he was so hungover he’d retched as he read his children Noddy stories in the morning.

Indeed, Clarkson loves to boast about being and getting drunk — once saying he was so hungover he’d retched as he read his children Noddy stories in the morning.

Clarkson recently got himself into hot water after tweeting about driving in Australia with a beer in his car’s cup holder and has been censured by the BBC Trust for drinking gin and tonic on screen while driving in the Arctic.

Journalist Piers Morgan (with whom he has feuded for years) met Clarkson for a drink last summer and noted: ‘He had four gallons of house rosé.’

Clarkson admits, too, that he never exercises and is hugely unfit, as well as greatly overweight. Reports vary as to how much the 6ft 5in presenter weighs, but it may be as much as 18st.

After slipping two discs in his back a few years ago, I understand that Clarkson has now been told he requires two hip replacements.

That is a daunting prospect, and his work schedule is so packed that it will be difficult to fit in the surgery and necessary recovery time.

It also means that he is living in considerable pain.

As his friend, food critic A. A. Gill, wrote elliptically in last weekend’s Sunday Times: ‘He has had a number of not entirely self-inflicted health concerns.’

This apparently alludes to his need for hip replacements.

Left to right: Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson, and James May in a Top Gear promotional shoot

Clarkson himself wrote in November: ‘I recently had a full medical and the news was not good.

'Having spent an entire day making me run about on a treadmill with a selection of enormous probes up my bottom, the doctor pulled a stern face and described my fitness as “atrocious”.

‘He’s right, of course. I get tired pulling on my socks these days. So, if I want to live much past the end of next weekend he says I must give up smoking, drink less, walk more, lose weight and — he really did say this — stop going to Argentina [where he got embroiled in a diplomatic row with the Buenos Aires government over the Falklands].’

Crucially, he no longer lives with the woman who has steered and managed every aspect of his career.

Now based in London, his estranged wife, Francie — whom he married in 1993 — still lives at the former marital home in the Oxfordshire town of Chipping Norton.

‘His wife kicked him out of the house,’ explained a local.

George Wissinger, who owns Georgian House Antiques in the town, says: ‘Clarkson used to come in with his wife, but now she comes on her own. There is a problem there.’

But although Francie is apparently determined to divorce him, it’s not a clear-cut situation.

Clarkson with his estranged wife Franice in 2008 - she reportedly kicked him out of their house

The couple still share many friends and sometimes go to dinner parties or lunches together.

Some weekends, he visits the old marital home — a large spread complete with swimming pool, outbuildings and chickens — to see Francie and their three children (aged between 21 and 15).

Francie, a 5ft 1in toughie who is every bit as fun and opinionated as Clarkson, worked as a recruitment consultant until stopping to manage his career, taking care of everything from his diary, media contracts and commercial endorsements to his tax returns and daily admin.

He once said: ‘Happily, my wife organises my diary, gets me in the right clothes, reminds me when to be in and where to go when I’m out.’

He has also admitted certain indiscretions. ‘My wife is a liberal woman and knows I frequently go to lap-dancing clubs. I wouldn’t set foot in a place like that in Britain though, only abroad.

‘After all, when you’re working there’s not a lot else to do, is there? You go in, have a very nice time, go home and make love to your wife for the first time in a month!’

For her part, Francie has been unsparing about his domestic failings.

‘He sings in the bath, leaves cigarette ends by the side of the sink, never replaces the loo roll, leaves his socks rolled up in a ball under the sofa, sleeps through the loudest of child squawking and farts in bed.’

She told another interviewer some years ago: ‘I left Jeremy without (nanny) cover for one day. He threw up in the sink when he had to change a nappy.’

Nappies aside, she stressed that he was a ‘brilliant, fun-loving father. I put this down to the Peter Pan principle, which enables him to build elaborate dens out of the furniture and turn bath-time into a scene from The Poseidon Adventure.’

As recently as 2005 the marriage was in great health, with Clarkson buying an old lighthouse on the Isle of Man — which is where Francie is from — as a place to take family holidays.

However, by 2011, Phillipa Sage was on the scene and she remains there, discreetly.

The blonde events organiser, 45, was among the entourage on the Top Gear Live Tour in 2011.

Clarkson (pictured) during the Top Gear Live show at the Hydro arena in Glasgow last January

It is said that she spent nights with Clarkson as he travelled around Australia, South Africa and Norway.

The pair were photographed by the pool at a Johannesburg hotel, and, according to other guests, he fed her ‘lettuce with his fingers’.

Soon after, they were spotted at Oslo’s Grand Hotel, apparently sharing a suite. They also sat together under blankets drinking wine in the hotel’s roof-top bar.

They were seen together at a birthday party for socialite David Tang last year, but generally Miss Sage does not attend public events with him, and also seems to stay at home when he goes out with other friends.

They are, though, an item — holidaying in Greece in 2013.

‘He dotes on his kids and would not do anything to hurt them,’ I’m told. ‘He doesn’t go about introducing a new woman to people.’

This discretion co-exists with a frantic lifestyle. He starts work at 6am and carries on until 10pm — six days a week.

Top Gear producer Andy Wilman has said: ‘I’m just a facilitator; the engine room is Jeremy. It’s rare you get a presenter with that level of involvement and that much editorial nous.’

He explained that Clarkson has been known to work through the night on a rough-edit, and then go into work at 8am the following day.

Top Gear producer Oisin Tymon - Clarkson allegedly hammered on Tymon’s door, four days after the fracas — hoping that they could talk over what had happened instead of going through the full BBC rigmarole

Clarkson writes the scripts for the show. He also travels widely, makes public appearances and writes for newspapers and magazines.

‘To put a show such as Top Gear together takes a lot of effort. You sign up for Top Gear, you wave goodbye to a social life, that’s for sure,’ he wrote last year.

Clarkson is, then, a man under a great deal of pressure.

Adding to the woes is the death of his beloved mother last year.

At the time, he was in the middle of a Top Gear tour in Russia. ‘There I was, trying to organise her funeral and tell the children and sort out all the legal stuff, with the BBC moaning at me in one ear and a reporter twittering on in the other.

‘I knew that if I wept, which is what I wanted to do, because I was very close to my mother, the Daily Mirror would run pictures and claim they were tears of shame. It was a gruesome time.’