Ex-‘Top Gear’ Host Richard Hammond Cheats Death in Fiery ‘Grand Tour’ Crash

Writer, auto enthusiast and TV host Richard Hammond cheats death — again — in a fiery auto crash during filming on season two of his Amazon Prime show “The Grand Tour.” He didn’t walk away unscathed, but looking at photos from the accident (supplied by Amazon Studios), this is one very lucky man.

The former host of the BBC’s “Top Gear” — who, along with James May, followed fellow host Jeremy Clarkson out of that show and into “The Grand Tour” — was filming for the auto-centric Amazon Studios production in St. Gallen in northeast Switzerland.

While driving a Rimac supercar worth roughly $2.5M, Hammond apparently lost control of the car in a corner. The video below shows the last few seconds before the crash.

Amazingly, the 47-year-old was able to exit the car before it burst into flames.

Here’s a statement from Amazon:

“Richard Hammond was involved in a serious crash after completing the Hemburg Hill Climb in Switzerland in a Rimac Concept One, an electric super car built in Croatia, during filming for The Grand Tour season two on Amazon Prime Video, but very fortunately suffered no serious injury.  Richard was conscious and talking, and climbed out of the car himself before the vehicle burst into flames. He was flown by Air Ambulance to hospital in St. Gallen to be checked over revealing a fracture to his knee. Nobody else was in the car or involved in the accident, and we’d like to thank the paramedics on site for their swift response. The cause of the crash is unknown and is being investigated.”

This follows another incident, less than three months ago, when Hammond (nicknamed “Hamster”) fell off a motorbike while filming in Mozambique.

From the U.K. Guardian:

The presenter later posted on the DriveTribe website: “Yes I fell off but yes, I’m fine. Sorry … Thanks for inquiries re my slight shunt whilst filming for GT. I can confirm that yes, I fell off a bike, many times, in fact and yes, I banged my head and everything else. But life goes on.”

The latest crash is eerily similar to an incident in 2006, when Hammond suffered life-threatening head injuries and brain damage after crashing a jet-powered Vampire dragster at 288 mph.

From the U.K. Daily Mail:

In 2006 Hammond nearly died after crashing a jet powered car at 288 mph and slipped into a coma during an attempt to break the British land speed record for the BBC show.

He was driving a jet-powered Vampire dragster when the front-right tyre burst leading the vehicle to spin out of control during a stunt at Elvington airfield near York.

Hammond suffered serious head injuries and he was in hospital for five weeks before returning home to his wife Mindy and their two daughters, Isabella and Willow.

The TV presenter, nicknamed ‘Hamster’, later told how he struggled ‘mortally with depression’ and spoke regularly to a psychiatrist following the incident.

Earlier today (Jun 10), Clarkson tweeted about the latest crash:

Like “Top Gear,” “The Grand Tour” sends the trio on motor-related adventures around the world, but the injection of cash from Amazon has raised the new series to levels unheard-of on the BBC show.

It’s hard to tell just how much of the on-screen perils are authentic and how much is exaggerated for effect, but one thing’s for sure, when the guys are behind the wheel, the dangers are very real.

Hammond is also a helicopter pilot, as he told me in 2012 while visiting a Torrance, California, helicopter plant for a series ironically called “Richard Hammond’s Crash Course.”

Hammond bought his own helicopter so that he could leave locations for “Top Gear” and other projects and get home quickly to his wife and two daughters. It was also useful for impressing his “Top Gear” colleagues, Jeremy Clarkson and James May.

“James flies fixed-wing,” Hammond says, “so he’s very snobby about helicopters. Jeremy doesn’t fly anything, so he’s sniffy about flying in general. But we were over the east coast in the U.K., and it’s a long drive home. I’d flown in, and they’d both driven.

“I dropped James off in London and Jeremy off in his garden. That shut them up. They haven’t gone on about it since. They realized, that’s it. It’s quite useful.”

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