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 left Top Gear in 2015 (Credit: Splashnews.com)
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.”
Richard admitted he and his Top Gear co-stars did not socialise (Credit: Splashnews.com)
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