James May joins Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond for season two Top Gear in 2003. The cast has become guardians of global car culture with their shared love of internal combustion engines and sense of humor.
We spoke to May about the series finale Grand TourIt will be released on Amazon on Friday, September 13. Titled One for the RoadThe two-hour special takes May and Hammond to Zimbabwe, a country they've never visited before, and then concludes the series by returning to the Botswana salt flats where they concluded their first travel special. Top Gear In 2007.
We sat down with May to talk about the ups and downs of the shoot The Grand Tour is over 46 episodes across six seasons.
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When pressed about the scariest incident during filming, May said: “I think there was a brief moment when I believed Richard Hammond had killed himself driving the Rimac up the mountain, then I realised they were waving all the flags and dragging him from the wreckage. He was alive and they knew he was going to catch fire.”
They were filming in Switzerland. On Hammond's fourth and final lap of the hillclimb course in St. Gallen, he approached a corner too fast, causing his tyres to lose traction and he skidded off the track.”
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“It gives me chills,” said the old Top Gear producer Andy Wilman told Times Radio:[Hammond] “He was at the bottom of that hill, head down, all by himself. He had broken his knee and had to get out of that car. And a supercar window is like a mailbox. If he had been unconscious, he wouldn't be here.”