(Image: Press Association)
Richard Hammond has said he “would’ve carried on” with the Grand Tour after admitting the show ending left a “big hole”.
The presenter, 56, said he would have continued the Amazon Prime series had his co-hosts Jeremy Clarkson and James May suggested doing so.
"They were ready to stop; we had to stop, there's no question. It was hard ending it; I knew it was going to leave a big hole," he told the High Performance podcast. "Had the others said, 'Shall we carry on?', I would've carried on."
He added: "We didn't know at the time, but god, it was amazing to do what we did [Top Gear and The Grand Tour]."
Hammond also reflected on the brain injury he sustained in a crash in York in 2006 on the podcast.
The presenter crashed a jet-powered dragster called Vampire at nearly 320mph while filming for Top Gear at the former RAF Elvington airbase in 2006.
Although the incident left him with serious head injuries, he recovered and returned to the show in early 2007.
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He told the High Performance podcast he fears the brain injury could lead to early onset dementia but he is “too scared” to get tested for the condition.
Hammond, who now presents Richard Hammond’s Workshop on Discovery Plus, was brought up in North Yorkshire and left Ripon Grammar School in the middle of his A levels before studying visual arts at Harrogate.
His first broadcasts emanated on BBC Radio York. “It took me about a week just to put one piece together,” Hammond once told an interviewer. “And I only got paid about £10, so I worked part-time in a bookshop and a petrol station and collected chicken eggs on a farm.”