Top Gear host Chris Evans is resigning after just one season, as ratings for the programme crash.

Evans said in a statement that standing aside is the single best thing he can do.

He took control of the hit programme after the BBC sacked Jeremy Clarkson for punching his producer.

Evans' departure has been put down to impossible comparisons to the Jeremy Clarkson era.

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Guardian reporter Steve Hewlett told Mike Hosking Evans left on his own accord, and was fed up.

"It was always going to be a tough job to follow Clarkson, but to be put into a situation where you're competing with the memory of Clarkson in what amounts to the same format, invited comparisons which were very hard to deal with."

Hewlett said Evans wasn't a motoring expert, and the BBC will have a number of things to consider.

"First of all, can they make this format work with anybody, and secondly, they're going to have to deal with the expertise question."

CNN's Max Foster said for Evans, it looks like a case of history repeating.

"He is a person who's had some massively high rating programmes over the years in the UK, and when they haven't gone well for him he has quit, so that would be true to form."