Freddie Flintoff airlifted to hospital after crash during Top Gear filming

Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff has been taken to hospital after a high-speed crash while filming the latest series of Top Gear.

The former England cricket captain turned broadcaster was taking part in a shoot at Dunsfold Park Aerodrome in Surrey on Tuesday, which has featured regularly in the BBC show since 2002.

The 45-year-old was taken to hospital by air ambulance. It is understood Flintoff’s injuries are “not life-threatening”, according to the Sun, which first reported the story. Filming has been postponed, it said.

A BBC spokesperson said: “Freddie was injured in an accident at the Top Gear test track this morning – with crew medics attending the scene immediately.

“He has been taken to hospital for further treatment and we will confirm more details in due course.”

The show’s presenters have previously been involved in dangerous crashes while filming. Richard Hammond, who was a mainstay of the car programme in the 2000s and early 2010s, was nearly killed at York’s Elvington airfield in 2006 when a dragster he was driving spun while travelling at 288mph.

Hammond was later in a coma and suffered brain damage. However, he returned to screens and is now part of The Grand Tour on Amazon Prime with his one-time Top Gear colleagues Jeremy Clarkson and James May.

Flintoff himself has been in a high-speed accident since he began as one of the show’s co-presenters in 2019. In 2019 he lost control of a motorised trike, the Time Bandit, when racing at 124mph against co-hosts Chris Harris and Paddy McGuinness.

Speaking afterwards, he said: “I go to great lengths to make sure I do well in Top Gear drag races but on this occasion I went a few lengths too far! It will look more ridiculous than dangerous when you see it on TV.”

The one-time all-rounder retired from cricket in 2015 and continued the TV career he had began on Sky One’s A League of Their Own five years earlier.

The 2005 Ashes winner has presented documentaries, including Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams for BBC One, in which he returned to his home town of Preston to try to understand why cricket didn’t seem to be capturing the imagination of state-school pupils from the Lancashire town.