Richard Hammond has admitted that he would have stayed on The Grand Tour, had his co-stars Jeremy Clarkson and James May not wanted to quit the show.
Having worked together since starting Top Gear in 2002, the presenting trio left Prime Video’s motoring series in 2024, with Clarkson, 66, saying at the time that the partnership was ending because he was “too old and fat to get into the cars that I like and not interested in driving those I don’t”.
But in a new interview, Hammond, 56, revealed that the presenters, along with long-time executive producer Andy Wilman, had promised to leave together. This meant that the partnership would come to an end even if one of them – in this case Hammond – hadn’t been so keen to do so.
“If the others had said let’s carry on, I’d have carried on. If they were ready to stop, we had to stop,” Hammond said on The High Performance Podcast.
“This time I didn’t have any choice. I’d have carried on ‘cause I would. If they were ready to stop, we had to stop. There was no question. We all four had to be there to do it, so I was ready to stop because the others were. But equally, if the others had said, ‘Let’s carry on,’ I’d have carried on.”
Hammond would go on to say that he “wanted” the team to “still be in that place” where they wanted to host the show together.
“It’s quite a complicated four-way relationship, a 25-year career together like that. And if we weren’t all in that place of wanting to do it, then ... I wouldn’t want to do it. Because it wouldn’t work. Couldn’t do it.”
Hammond, May and Clarkson departed The Grand Tour in 2024 after eight years, wrapping the series with a special titled One For The Road.
However, the series was revived earlier this year with three new, younger presenters: TikTok train fan Francis Bourgeois and car YouTubers James Engelsman and Thomas Holland.
The series was, for the most part, well received – it has already been commissioned for a second series – and saw a cameo appearance from Clarkson telling the new presenters to “have fun” and not “f*** it up”.
Speaking about the support the support the original trio had offered ahead of the series launch, Bourgeois told The Independent: “They’ve been very supportive, very warm, very open in just saying, ‘Go ahead – make it your own,’ even though we have been sensitive in honouring what the show is all about, and keeping car enthusiasm central.”
May had a more hands-off approach, with Holland explaining: “His sentiment was, ‘Don’t ask me – just do your thing.’ It was the right thing to hear. It was like Yoda.”
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