Jeremy Clarkson says he would've left 'Top Gear' by now even without dismissal

Jeremy Clarkson doesn't think he would still be doing Top Gear now even if it wasn't for his 2015 exit from the BBC show.

The 59-year-old’s contract on the programme wasn't renewed following a much-publicised alleged "fracas" with a producer, but he’s said it would’ve come to an end for him by now regardless.

Speaking in a interview with GQ about whether he’d rather still be doing Top Gear over The Grand Tour, he said: "I think we’d have jumped the shark by now... We’d have done something idiotic. And it was becoming very, very difficult – and I think it still is at the BBC – to run a show like ours.

Read more: The Grand Tour host James May says he won't do show for 'much longer' amid health worries

“We wrote it every week specifically to annoy BBC management because we knew if we were annoying them, we were delighting huge swaths of Britain.

"But the truth is I had no truck against the BBC. It was [the then BBC director of television Danny] Cohen I had an issue with."

At the time, it was reported that Clarkson had been involved in an altercation with a BBC producer because he couldn't obtain a hot steak after a long day of filming.

He’d been part of the programme since its 2002 relaunch.

As fans well know, Richard Hammond and James May left the programme with Clarkson and the trio later went onboard with Amazon Prime for The Grand Tour.

Top Gear is currently hosted by Paddy McGuinness, Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff and Chris Harris.

It's recently been shared that the programme will be moved on from BBC Two to BBC One in light of the positive reception to the new line-up after their debut last year.