After he and Freddie Flintoff were injured in high-speed crashes, Richard Hammond says TV bosses must reconsider risky stunts: ‘Things do go wrong… I almost died’

With an undiminished passion for fast cars despite two life-threatening crashes at terrifying speeds, it would be fair to assume that Grand Tour presenter Richard Hammond is an adrenaline junkie with an insatiable thirst for danger. 

Not so. He says it’s the fact that he’s short that makes him unable to resist a big challenge. He’s 5ft 7in and was taunted at school for his height, or lack of it.

‘My natural response to a challenge is to step towards it,’ he says. ‘It comes from being a small bloke, because when you’re little at school you very quickly make yourself big and loud and funny. 

‘Other kids made me very conscious of my height and I took it to heart. I’m 5ft 7in, which is actually fairly normal – yes, I’m short but I’m not hilariously short.

‘Height is one of those weird things, particularly for men because it used to be read as a sign of health, strength and virility. And yet it’s something you can do nothing about. 

Richard Hammond in his classic car restoration workshop, which is the subject of his Discovery+ show Richard Hammond’s Workshop

‘A van driver once shouted out of his window to me, “You really are short, aren’t you?”, so I shouted back, “Yeah and you’re fat. But there’s nothing I can do about being short.” 

‘Then I drove off really fast as he was enormous! What I do enjoy is how often people are disappointed when they meet me because they expect to see something you’d pop on the mantelpiece.’

He’s sitting behind his desk at his home in Herefordshire so it’s hard to gauge his relative height. What is apparent is his tenacity, which is currently being channelled into running a classic car restoration business. 

He set it up with automotive ‘wonder family’ Neil, Anthony and Andrew Greenhouse, and it’s the subject of his Discovery+ show, Richard Hammond’s Workshop, which is back on our screens later this month.

‘I’m not an adrenaline junkie and I never have been, but I’m getting a big kick out of business, full stop,’ says Richard, 53. 

‘It’s very exciting because I’ve had 25 years as a TV and radio presenter where almost everything’s been done for me. I’ve never had to think about it. 

‘But now I’m enjoying suddenly being out here in the real world. Of course I get anxious at night – find somebody who runs a business who doesn’t worry.’

Despite the show entering its third series, The Smallest Cog classic car workshop is yet to make a profit. 

Now Richard plans to restore expensive cars with a unique story to attract high-end customers willing to pay a higher rate, but jobs like a rusty Lancia and an ex-military Pinzgauer threaten to eat into any profits.

Highlights of the new series include Richard taking on the restoration of a unique Delahaye sports car, built for legendary Grand Prix driver Louis Chiron in 1947. 

Richard was in a coma for two weeks after his crash in a jet-powered Vampire dragster in 2006

He then plans to raise The Smallest Cog’s profile by taking both the Delahaye and a classy Jaguar XK120 to the prestigious Salon Privé luxury car show. 

Richard also investigates the future of motoring by driving a classic Bentley powered on synthetic fuel.

‘It’s a completely different show to The Grand Tour. The only similarity is that both are about people and their passions as much as about cars. 

‘But we’re not pretending on this show that I’ve suddenly given up my successful media career to become unpaid manager of a workshop in Herefordshire. 

‘I still have to keep my work going, so I’m still doing my other stuff and The Grand Tour with the guys.’

Fans of that Amazon motoring show, which Richard co-hosts with Jeremy Clarkson and James May, will be pleased to hear that filming is finished on the next instalment. 

However, production has been suspended on the trio’s former show Top Gear amid concerns about its safety protocols after Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff’s 130mph horror crash last December. 

The former England cricket captain was ‘lucky to be alive’ after his open-topped three-wheel Morgan Super 3 car, which had no air bags, flipped over while filming the BBC series.

Flintoff’s brush with death followed Richard’s own catastrophic smash on Top Gear in 2006. He spent two weeks in a coma after crashing in a jet-powered Vampire dragster at 288mph on a Yorkshire airfield when a tyre burst. 

Then, in 2017, his electric supercar skidded off a Swiss mountain road while filming The Grand Tour. Richard woke up to find himself still strapped in, upside down, as the £2 million motor caught fire. The crash was so bad that Jeremy and James believed he had died. 

Filming was temporarily put on hold while he recovered from a fractured knee, requiring the insertion of a plate and ten screws.

Former England captain Freddie Flintoff in the stands during the first one day international match at Sophia Gardens, Cardiff, on Friday September 8, 2023

Richard doesn’t necessarily think these horror accidents will put TV executives off doing stunts in the future, but he says they need to seriously consider the risks when plotting the stunts. 

‘Television makers have to be aware that you’re not in some special bubble just because you’re making a TV show, and things can and do go wrong. Just like when my tyre blew at that speed – it’s going to be bad. 

‘But what are you going to do? Track it back to the person who tapped the rubber? Something went wrong and things do go wrong.

‘I don’t know if Top Gear will come back. It’s up to the BBC – often they will rest a brand. My connection with Top Gear was that I watched it as a kid and loved it. Then I was lucky enough to be involved in making our version, and I’m sure there will be other versions in the future.’

Has he been in touch with Andrew? ‘I’ve met him a couple of times but I don’t know him. Obviously I was desperately concerned. It’s a really distressing thing to go through. I just wish him all the very best. He’s got his own journey to undergo and he’ll do that in his own way.’

Richard relied on the support of his wife Mindy and their daughters Izzy and Willow, now 22 and 20, after the 2006 accident. 

And it worked – it had been expected he’d be in a clinic for 15 months but he was home at the family castle near Ross-on-Wye in just five weeks.

‘In the early days of recovery I was having terrible trouble containing and controlling emotions, which is part of the damage done to my brain’s frontal lobe. But I do remember sitting by the fireplace and holding Mindy’s hand and saying, “Let’s make this a good thing. Let’s take ownership of this.” It was a conscious decision.

‘I had a lot of help from Mindy in supporting me going back to work because keeping me away from work was probably a greater problem. But I had to go back carefully and have an afternoon nap every day. It was immensely traumatic for Mindy and our girls.’

At first Richard didn’t even recognise his wife, then his short-term memory was limited to ten seconds and the frontal lobe injury made him prone to temper tantrums. 

On one occasion Richard told his family to evacuate the house because he felt he was going to explode. Maybe surprisingly, it was Jeremy Clarkson who sent funny notes to Mindy each day to make her laugh through the darkest times.

‘Mindy really appreciated that Jeremy did that. She was told early on, “You’ll have to watch out for anger, but also a tendency towards compulsive behaviour, paranoia or obsession.” But Mindy just paused and said, “Yeah, but you didn’t meet him before the crash!”’

Mindy issued Richard a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ warning after his last accident, and both he and his Grand Tour co-hosts have been known to cause consternation when not in the driving seat.

Clarkson had to apologise after his controversial newspaper article about Meghan Markle last year, while in 2016 Richard was criticised for suggesting that, for men, eating ice cream is linked to being gay. 

But he says he doesn’t court controversy. ‘I don’t like being in trouble and I don’t like causing offence,’ he says. ‘There’s nothing to gain for me from being a naughty boy at the back of the class.’

So what are the trio really like off camera? ‘Jeremy’s not quite as bombastic as he is on the show,’ says Richard. ‘James isn’t as laid-back… and I’m not as short!’

Richard Hammond’s Workshop starts on 23 October on Discovery+.