Hamster thrashes Shilpa in ratings

The return of Top Gear, featuring Richard Hammond's high-speed crash, trounced the final of Celebrity Big Brother in television ratings announced today.

Nearly 8million people watched the BBC2 motoring show compared with 5.8 million tuning into Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty's victory on the Channel 4 show.

Top Gear, which attracted 7.9 million viewers, was showing footage of the crash that nearly killed Hammond - known as Hamster - for the first time.

The popular 38-year-old, one of the show's presenters, escaped death in the jet-powered dragster's 280mph crash.

The winning margin of 2.1 million is regarded by TV insiders as a "major victory" for a specialist show like Top Gear which is not normally expected to feature at the top of the ratings.

Meanwhile Big Brother fans claimed show bosses fixed the evictions of Jo O'Meara and Danielle Lloyd to give them an easy ride.

The pair, along with Jade Goody, were accused of bullying Shetty and aiming racist remarks towards her - making them the most unpopular contestants in the reality show's history.

When it was announced Lloyd was evicted, along with Jack Tweedy 19, the sound suddenly switched off and viewers were left with a caption screen, which read: "Sorry for the loss of sound which will return shortly."

As she said her goodbyes the sound came back, but then cut out again as Lloyd, 23, left the house to face the baying crowd for the first time. Fans also complained that both Lloyd and singer Jo O'Meara, who was evicted on Friday, each left with another contestant, escaping the full wrath of the crowd outside. On Friday, Jo, 28, left the house with Cleo Rocos, 44.

A spokeswoman for Big Brother said: "It is a live show and the sound cutting out was just a technical error, nothing to do with the booing that Danielle and Jack received."

She confirmed there was a one minute delay in last night's "live programme" because some of it was screened before the 9pm watershed.