The Grand Tour

Richard Hammond Argues That James May’s Crash Should Be Included On The Grand Tour

Richard Hammond has supported the producers of The Grand Tour’s decision to include the footage of co-host James May’s horrendous crash in the upcoming episode, The Grand Tour Presents: A Scandi Flick. 

James May crashed into a wall during a challenge in the show where they were travelling down a tunnel which had lights on sensors so they did know until the last second when they had reached the end. May was reportedly travelling at 75 mph when he collided with the wall and he was quickly taken to hospital. It was later revealed that he had suffered from a broken rib.

Hammond has been in many high-speed crashes on The Grand Tour and Top Gear, and a particularly bad one which left him in a coma in 2006, when he was in a jet-powered car.

When asked about May’s crash being shown on the episode in and interview with the Standard, Hammond:

“It’s the story, it’s what happens. You have to tell the story as it unfolds,”

“My crown as the one who crashes has been stolen by James May and I’m quite happy to let him have it,”

The upcoming special sees the trio, Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May, travel around Norway in rally cars of their choice. The trio have been on our screens for a long time, both on Top Gear and The Grand Tour, showing us the latest new cars as well as old favourites and going off on hilarious adventures around the globe. When asked if they are still enthusiastic about making the show, Hammond explained:

“We love doing it because it’s what we do.

“We’ve been incredibly lucky that it became as big as it became and that we’ve been allowed to carry on doing it as long as we have – I’m never going to do anything bigger than this, so it’s become my career, and I’m really lucky and really glad of that.

“We’re very appreciative of the fact that we have been very lucky to get to make the shows on the scale that we have and we do.

“And weirdly, they’re still evolving and changing because through lockdown we could make those two shows, but we couldn’t go stand in a desert or a jungle or a glacier, so we had to do somewhere more local.”

He continued:

“But what that did was remind us that at the heart of the show is three blokes who love cars and people like watching that. Whether or not you like cars, you don’t have to like cars,”

“People watch shows about baking cakes or throwing pots on a wheel, they don’t have to do that at home themselves, we just like watching people who are passionate about things.

“So that could come to the front of it and I think it did, in this show I think you get a reminder that, ‘oh, wait a minute, those three really are nuts about cars!’ because we loved the cars that we had on the show.

“We’ve worked together for so long that, when we start one of these adventures from moment one, the director will shout ‘action!’ The cameras are all pointing and it’s like we all three step into a world of being there all along since the last special that we did and it’s like it never ended.

“And we know, if we say or do certain things, how the other two will react, which means we can have a great time. Whether you want to provoke a laugh or anger, we know what buttons to press and that’s great, it’s a real advantage.”

The Grand Tour Presents: A Scandi Flick will be released on Prime Video on September 16.

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