Richard Hammond has addressed throwing himself into genuinely perilous situations during filming on Prime Video’s high-octane motoring show The Grand Tour.
The show returns from a nine-month break in September with A Scandi Flick, the latest in a series of feature-length episodes, which see Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May getting into antics around the world.
The trio have certainly pulled off some daring stunts during their time together, which began during their tenure on the BBC’s Top Gear, but Hammond told press at a recent roundtable interview that a sense of real danger never escapes them.
He said: “We are in real peril because we’ve learnt – I personally have learnt and now James has learnt better than most people – that just because you’re doing telly doesn’t mean things can’t go wrong. They do.
“And I’ve ended up in hospital with things broken, including my brain, because they do and there’s nothing you can do, there’s no magic wand. There’s no protective TV bubble.”
Hammond was left with serious head injuries following a high-speed crash in 2006 while filming for Top Gear, and made headlines again in 2017 when he had to be airlifted to hospital following a supercar crash in Switzerland, which took place during shooting on an earlier season of The Grand Tour.
At the time of the latter, co-presenter Clarkson described it as “the biggest crash I’ve ever seen”, but fortunately, Hammond was able to escape without sustaining serious injuries.
James May was hospitalised just last month during another of the show’s motoring challenges, in which he reportedly reached speeds of 75mph (via The Sun), but also managed to avoid doing permanent damage to himself.
Hammond added: “Accidents can happen, circumstances can change, things can go wrong and break and they do.”
Check out the trailer for The Grand Tour: A Scandi Flick below, which is streaming on Prime Video from Friday 16th September.
Additional reporting by Lauren Morris.
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