TV star Richard Hammond reflected on the success of Top Gear in an exclusive interview with Entertainment Daily.
The 55-year-old, who will be a guest judge at this year’s Salon Privé event on August 31, has remained a regular face on television after waving goodbye to the BBC show in 2015 alongside co-hosts Jeremy Clarkson and James May.
The trio had hosted the show since 2002 and faced many victories along the way. However, Richard’s reflected on his decision to walk away…
Richard Hammond on why he left Top Gear
“We all wanted to land it at a time, in a place, and in a manner of our choosing,” he told ED!
“The takeoff of it, twenty odd years ago, was when we just set out to make the best car show because that was the sole aim. Each of us contributed to making what we felt was the best car show we could make. We didn’t think it was gonna do what it did,” Richard continued.
“It became as huge as it became. We weren’t in control in the sense of the takeoff, but for the landing, we could be. We were fulfilled. That said, yeah, I miss it immensely. I miss the team. A team like that on TV never comes together.”
‘We felt the burden’
The success of the show also took Richard by complete surprise.
“I started in radio in 1988, that’s thirty-seven years ago. Oh, god. I never thought for a second I’d end up working on a show as big as the one I worked on. Even when I got the job on Top Gear, none of us thought that was going to happen. It’s been an incredible, riotous, volatile, dynamic journey that’s taken us places, both literally and figuratively, that we never thought it would,” he explained.
“It’s been an incredible privilege. I’m just back from a walk along the river where I live, um, and was thinking about exactly that. There’s a sense of, ‘Wow!'”
As far as Richard is concerned, everything that took off for him on television was pure luck. The need to keep the success rolling also didn’t come at much of a cost.
“We felt the burden, but not in an unpleasant way because we only ever returned to our mantra, which was to make the best show we could,” he said.
“There was no science in it; we didn’t calculate our way to success. We just lucked out in that the world there was an appetite in the world for three misshapen, daft blokes who just fitted the zeitgeist.”
‘We never socialised’
The likes of Chris Evans, Matt Le Blanc, and Paddy McGuinness took over from presenting duties after the trio left before Top Gear officially called it a day in 2022.
Following Top Gear, Richard, Jeremy, James, and the show’s executive producer, Andy Wilman, launched a new series, The Grand Tour, on Amazon Prime Video in 2016.
Last year, the show filmed an episode in Zimbabwe, which concluded in Botswana. It marked the end of their working relationship after 22 years.
“That was genuinely emotional because it’s very unlikely we’ll never all be together again on a TV show,” Richard shared.
The group has remained friends. But admittedly, they never got used to socialising outside of work due to their hectic schedules.
“We spent so much time together for twenty-odd years. The only way to spend more time together would have been to get married. We never were apart,” Richard revealed.
“We never socialised out of work because there was no need to. Because if you’re spending three weeks, every night sitting and chatting and every morning meeting up for breakfast and filming, and then you’re only home for a week before you’re off doing something else, well, you’re hardly likely to get back together again in that week. We never got the habit of doing that.”
He continued: “All three of us were very different. We needed to preserve that because if we were all the same, we’d just become so marginalised, and nobody wants to watch margarine.”
Top Gear controversies
Throughout Top Gear’s history, the show has never been short of complaints and controversies.
In 2006, Richard’s high-speed crash in a jet-powered car sparked safety concerns. Meanwhile, Jeremy allegedly said a racial slur and made offensive jokes about Argentina during the 2014 Patagonia special, which caused quite a stir. He later shared a public apology.
Top Gear had also been accused of making insensitive remarks about foreign countries and damaging historic sites.
“The point is we were never bad people,” Richard said in response to previous backlash.
“Sometimes what we said crossed a line. And in a way, you’re doing a service there because sometimes you don’t really know where the line is until you look over your shoulder at it behind you and realise, ‘Oh, I’m on the other side of it.’ The good thing is if society then affords you the chance to discuss that, rather than condemning you as being an ist of any sort, which, you know, I’m emphatically not. But could some of the things we said and did have been interpreted in that light? Maybe. And in which case, they needed to be examined and discussed, and if necessary, an apology made, but we’ve all learned,” he continued.
“I’m not one to jump on a bandwagon and say, ‘Oh, we’re all doomed. We’re all awful.’ We’re not. We’re at our worst when we just beat ourselves up constantly. And you hear people say, ‘Oh, we’re just killing the planet. It’s terrible.’ No, we’re not. Common sense generally prevails.”
Richard Hammond at Salon Privé
As he prepares to make an appearance at Salon Privé, Richard insisted, “It’s a really good time to be celebrating beautiful, significant cars”.
“I think we’re all at a turning point where a lot of us are realising, ‘Hang on. There’s a purely utilitarian reason that cars are undergoing massive change at the moment,'” he said.
“In some instances, a sort of autonomous anonymous box that you order from your smartphone and it just arrives will be appropriate. But in other instances, the independence that a car affords you, the opportunity to go lead your life, means they are incredible time machines. They’re just filled with significance and clues and cues as to their time. And a lot of the cars at Salon Prive will be exactly that.”
Richard is praying for incredible weather on the day. But either way, he’s not willing to let that ruin anything.
“We’re a stoic lot, us Brits. I think we’re used to standing in the field in the rain, and some of the cars look beautiful. It’s sort of nature’s polish,” he added.
The event will take place at Blenheim Palace between Wednesday, 27th August and Sunday, 31st August.
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