Hammond wants Ange on the job

Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond became a household name last year after he nearly died filming a stunt for the show. He was driving a jet-powered Vampire dragster, capable of 370mph, when a tyre blew and the vehicle crashed. Hammond was left in a coma and was lucky to survive. He tells the story of his recuperation in On The Edge, published by Orion.

Why did you write the book?

My wife and I both wrote it because it was cathartic. It saved many hours of therapy. Hopefully, it might also be of use to people who have suffered from or know someone who’s had a head injury. It’s an honest account of how it affected us and what we went through. That’s a good thing to do after a head injury because people don’t talk about it. Like anything else to do with the mind going wrong, they find it difficult to discuss. If the book resonates with people who know someone who’s going through something similar, then that’s good.

Has the accident caused any long-term damage?

Everything works now, although it’s an ongoing process. I can’t say ‘I’m now officially better’ because there are still times when it’s difficult. The recovery process takes a long time.

You were expected to be in hospital for at least two years. Why do you think you recovered so speedily?

The indicators were that the type and severity of my brain damage would necessitate two years of work. All they can do is base it on statistics of people with similar injuries – they can’t stick a dipstick in your head. That’s the nature of brains. You stir up the big bucket of porridge in your head and you never know what’s going to happen. I was very lucky.

Why do you think it became such a big news story?

I’m perceived as being a normal man on the street. The kind of programmes I’ve done have been based on that concept so people can relate to it. Top Gear is also seen as being a bit of a fantasy world. The fact that disaster could happen in that fantasy world was a bit of a shock to people. I didn’t see the coverage, obviously, because I was in a coma.

What went wrong?

The front right tyre blew. It could have been a defect in the tyre or a nail or foreign object being picked up from the track. Whatever was wrong with the tyre, it couldn’t have been spotted beforehand.

What lessons did you learn?

After the investigation, it was shown we had extremely good practice. We’re lucky as a programme to learn from a hideous accident in which no one, luckily, was killed. I had the best possible crash helmet, the harnesses were top-quality and we had all the relevant emergency contact numbers. Now we have to pick over that, learn why it didn’t turn out worse than it did and learn from that experience.

Has it put you off doing stunts?

No, because it was a stunt that went wrong, despite all the precautions we’d taken, and I came through it. There are some things I wouldn’t do, though. I’m not keen on jumping into a jet-powered car again because it would be hard on my family. My wife had to write the bits of the book when I was in a coma or, frankly, mad and I wouldn’t put her through that again. I faced my own demise but that meant she faced having to raise the kids on her own and explain why daddy was dead – that’s hard. It would be disrespectful to do it again.

What is the biggest argument you’ve had on the programme?

We don’t normally argue about who does what, it’s normally quite obvious. If they’re too fat and old to do something, then I do it. There’s usually a logical reason why one of us does it over the others. We do argue over particular cars but we’re not very competitive among ourselves. If it’s a being tall competition, Jeremy wins; if it’s a getting lost and having bad hair competition, James wins; if it’s being younger and irritating, I win. We all have our specialties.

What are the favourite things you’ve done in the programme?

We seem to have more fun with every series. The Polar trip and road trip across America both stand out. We were hounded out of town by rednecks in Alabama. We painted what we thought were cheeky slogans on the cars but they wanted to kill us. Jeremy [Clarkson] had ‘country music is rubbish’, James [May] had ‘Hillary for president’ and I had ‘man love rules OK’ down the side of my pick-up truck. I thought they were going to murder us.

And the bad points?

I didn’t like running with the bulls in Pamplona – that was frightening. We wanted to test a Lamborghini and find something with a bigger adrenalin hit. They release the bulls and everyone runs down the street into the arena but, if you’re not quick, the bulls end up overtaking you. One bloke picked me up and held me between him and the bulls. I didn’t realise what he was doing at the time or I’d have decked him.

What are your pet hates with regard to cars?

I’m not a fan of hybrids and I don’t like people being smug about cars. An MPV might be a boring car but the person driving it probably needs it if they’ve got to move four kids around the place. The school run in a 4×4 is ridiculous, though. You don’t need a 4×4 to mount a kerb.

Do you really whiten your teeth?

No, I gave up smoking and don’t drink much coffee, so my teeth naturally got whiter as James and Jeremy’s got greener. They made up that story to take the mickey. My teeth just stopped getting stained – I’ve never had them whitened, thank you.