Richard Hammond says he didn’t want to split up from TV pals Jeremy Clarkson and James May
In an interview with the High Performance podcast Richard Hammond says he would have been happy to carrying on working with James May and Jeremy Clarkson – but they made a pact to end once one or more of them wanted to stop.
For all the on show bicketing and jokes, Richard Hammond clearly looks back with fondness on his time with Clarkson and May.
Richard Hammond has admitted he didn’t want to split up from TV pals Jeremy Clarkson and James May when they ended The Grand Tour – but felt he had no choice. The trio, and executive producer Andy Wilman had been on TV together since they fronted Top Gear in 2003 right up until finishing with Grand Tour on Prime Video two decades later.
On the prospect of continuing, Hammond said: “This time I didn’t have any choice. I’d have carried on ’cause I would.”
Speaking on the High Performance podcast, he was asked whether he told the others he was not necessarily ready to stop. Hammond replied: “No, because if they were ready to stop, we had to stop. So I was ready to stop because the others were.”
Later he added: “That’s not because I’m easily swayed, it’s because I wanted us to still be in that place. But if we’re not all in that place, we’re not in that. 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 there was no, I wouldn’t want to do it. ’cause it wouldn’t work. Couldn’t do it.”
James May, Richard Hammond and Jeremy Clarkson filming the final The Grand Tour.(Image: PA)
The partnership which exploded when they became huge stars on BBC before the move to Prime Video, needed everyone to want to continue, and he explained that the team had always wanted to choose how their time together ended.
He added “So we couldn’t be in control of the takeoff, let’s be in control of the landing. And it really mattered to us that it was landed at a time in a place and in a manner of our choosing. And it was.”
After Clarkson was fired from Top Gear for punching a producer in 2015, May and Hammond also left and the trio were immediately hired for a new motoring series, The Grand Tour. The Grand Tour came to an end in 2024, with Clarkson, May and Hammond having an emotional return to where they started on Top Gear.
They planned to end the Prime Video series after an adventure in Zimbabwe. But in the end they put their foot down and drove across to Kubu Island in Botswana where they began their first Top Gear special back in 2007. Looking out towards the destination May adds: “There’s our tree.”
The poignant ending then sees the close friends recreate the same scenes 17 years on, with Hammond touching the tree and looking up to the sky after they have scaled some rocks together to get there.
At the time May said: “22 years, almost a third of my life. This is going to hit me in quite small ways. Anyway, I hope it brought you a little bit of happiness.”
Hammond said at a premiere for the final episode: “I never thought that what we do together would blow up as it had. I was excited when I got the job. Very excited, But I never dreamed it would grow into a career and life defining adventure and occasionally nearly life and career ending adventure. I can’t pretend it isn’t going to be a wrench ending this, because it is.”
Richard Hammond on the High Performance podcast
In his new interview, Hammond, 56, also told pod hosts Jake Humphrey and Damian Hughes he has ambitions to turn his current workshop – called The Smallest Cog – into a bigger venture. His pal Clarkson, 66, has grown his farm in the Cotswold a venue with a shop and even a nearby pub.
Hammond said: “I wanna grow the business. I do wanna move towards, I want a hub. I want like a little roadhouse where people can come, can see the cars being worked on.” He added: “I would love to build it so that I had a venue where there was a restaurant, a cafe and a museum and the cars from the show.”
