Matt LeBlanc to Host Top Gear

Former Friends star Matt LeBlanc join the BBC car-review program Top Gear as co-host when the series debuts a new look later this year. LeBlanc will host alongside Chris Evans - the British TV personality, not the Captain America actor.

LeBlanc and Evans will replace departing Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson. Clarkson left the show last year after a series of events led to Clarkson's physical altercation with one of the show's producers. Clarkson will go on to host a yet-unnamed series on Amazon Prime which will presumably attempt to compete directly with Top Gear.

LeBlanc will be the first American to host Top Gear, but he was not an entirely surprising choice for the job. He is already known to British audiences not just from his work on Friends, but also his role in the BBC series Episodes. He has been a guest previously on Top Gear, where he holds the record for the fastest lap on the show's test track, and he was the host of the limited run of a Top Gear spin-off series, Top Gear: The Races.

LeBlanc is set to join the production of the series immediately, and the new, revamped season of the show will air on the BBC sometime later in 2016.