It’s no secret Chris Evans wasn’t right for Top Gear. Acting as a presenter last season, the radio host’s tenure was met with widely negative reviews and the rating plummeted.

Last night, the newly rebooted series debuted on BBC One, the new presenting line-up of Matt LeBlanc, Rory Reid and Chris Harris being met with mixed reviews.

The Telegraph has been primarily positive, awarding the first episode four stars, saying that, despite “a few clunking elements still need tinkering with, the all-new Top Gear nonetheless impressed as it left the starting grid.”

Other publications, including Radio Times and Digital Spy, displayed similar sentiments, praising the show as being better than when Evans was in charge but criticising the studio elements as ‘feeling forced’.

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In one of the more scathing reviews, The Guardian wrote how the much-lauded chemistry of reins presenting trio Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May was missing.

“Yes, chemistry takes time, but there may not be much time, if ratings continue to go the way they did last series… Chris and Rory need to relax, and maybe sit down with Matt and a bottle of Kazakhstan vodka, get drunk, figure out who they are, and develop some kind of relationship”.

The Sun were the most middling, calling the new trio a “tribute act” to the previous trio, making snide remarks about Evans while concluding: “they clearly long to be Clarkson and the gang, but, at the moment, they’re actually more like two Richard Hammonds and an American James May.”

Perhaps noteworthy is that Clarkson and Co's latest show - The Grand Tour - received applause upon initial release, despite some further controversy down the line.