Richard Hammond backs BBC Top Gear revival
Former Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond can understand why the BBC is planning to revive the motoring show because of how important cars are in society.
Richard Hammond says it makes sense for the BBC to revive Top Gear again.
The corporation's director of entertainment Ed Harvard revealed in August that the motoring show will return - having been off air since Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff suffered serious injuries in a filming crash in 2022 - and the programme's former host has backed the revival given the car's importance in society.
Hammond, who hosted Top Gear from 2002 to 2015, told the Daily Telegraph newspaper: "The BBC will bring it back because it's an old brand, it predates us by decades (the series started back in 1977).
"The car is the second biggest outlay people have, if you're lucky enough to be able to buy a house, and people are doing that without being informed.
"Somebody's got to tell us, so maybe the BBC should be doing that and, for a laugh, put some facts in."
Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May formed a hugely successful partnership on both Top Gear and Amazon Prime's The Grand Tour for over two decades but he insists that he simply got "lucky" with his career in TV and has no desire to present a huge show again.
The presenter said: "I was just lucky with my TV career. I never thought for a second that I'd get to do all the things I've done.
"I'm not ruling out working in telly again, but I've scratched that itch (for a big show). I've done that. I'm loving bringing the things I'm really into to the fore."
Clarkson, Hammond and May started presenting Top Gear together in 2003 and the Richard Hammond's Workshop host felt that there was an "appetite" for that type of programme at the time.
He said: "You get appetites with TV. At the moment, people are enjoying famous people doing stuff - like me doing this workshop.
"At that time there was an appetite for a big car adventure show featuring three misshapen idiots. It was a little insight into the way the average male brain works.
"If we launched it now, there might be none."
