The new-look Top Gear won’t follow the show’s traditional ’three Stooges’ format, new host Chris Evans today revealed.

“We are going to do things differently, because we have to, we want to,” announced Evans at the MIPCOM convention in Cannes. “The second you wander off into the ‘Well I’m the main host, and this is my mate over here and my mate over here’… if there’s three of you, and you go and make a film together, suddenly you’re doing what they did. Why would you do that?

“Because they were brilliant at it, I’m not going to do that. One thing is for sure, there’s not going to be me and one guy there, and one guy there. That’s not going to happen.”

Evans paid tribute to Jeremy, James and Richard, stating he wouldn’t attempt to mimick the trio’s approach. “They’re the Three Stooges, they are the Bee Gees, they are that and I’m not, I’m me,” he told reporters. “I’m a solo artist at the moment, I’m on my own, so do I form a band or not?”

His Stigness also made an appearance in Cannes, with Evans stating: “I don’t want to say anything specific, but The Stig is here today – that might be a clue as to whether he’s here tomorrow.”

However, Evans confirmed his team would shake up TG’s tried-and-tested studio format. “We’re going to change that,” he said. “I can’t tell you into what. I know, by the way, but I can’t say at the moment.

“We are going to keep some things that I like, and my kids like, and my friends like, and that I liked anyway. But we are not going to throw the baby out with the bath water.”

Evans described the challenge of relaunching Top Gear TV as “formidable”, calling it “the biggest job I’ve ever had in my life.”

“I still am terrified,” he admitted. “You have to be, and if you’re not then you’re not the right person for the job…”