The Top Gear Story (20 page)

Although the report highlighted a minor number of areas of concern, it went on to say that several factors were vital in probably saving Hammond’s life: these included the Vampire’s roll bar and immense structural strength (the cockpit area was left completely intact), the driver’s restraints that Hammond found so suffocating to have put on him, the crash helmet and the rapid response of the entire team present when the crash occurred.

The BBC’s own cockpit footage clearly shows a tyre blow-out on the front offside wheel. Telemetry later revealed that Hammond was not braking at the moment of explosion – in other words, he was unaware of a problem in advance. The H&SE report confirmed ‘catastrophic failure’ was the ‘immediate cause’
and the speed when the incident occurred was confirmed at precisely 288mph. Close forensic examination of the tyre revealed it had been damaged as a result of an object (or objects) entering the sidewall immediately adjacent to the edge of the tread during the previous run. Although a blister was visible in the tyre’s outer side, this appeared to have subsided and was not visible to the naked eye as they prepared for the final run. It was therefore a ticking and hidden time bomb.

In the H&SE report it was also stated that Hammond’s reaction to the blow-out was, ‘that of a competent high performance car driver, namely to brake the car and to try to steer into the skid. Immediately afterwards he also seems to have followed his training and to have pulled back on the main parachute release lever, thus shutting down the jet engine and also closing the jet and afterburner fuel levers. The main parachute did not have time to deploy before the car ran off the runway.’

This confirms the parachute was deployed by Hammond, a fact that he revealed was highly reassuring as he’d previously felt enormous guilt (both as a married man and father) that somehow he might have ‘cocked up’. Not so. The report went on to say that he, ‘displayed considerable presence of mind, and to have managed to deploy the parachute following the blow-out …’ Analysis of the telemetry showed that even if Hammond had reacted with the fastest reflex humanly possible, the accident might still not have been avoidable, even by an experienced jet driver.

In interviews after the crash, Hammond made light of his driving ability, playing down the complexity of the car, and it was also noted he’d driven a Renault F1 car, which appeared to be a far more complex task than the jet car: ‘[Vampire] has got less knobs and buttons than a Nissan Micra – it’s great. All you do is get in and press a button, literally … you take your foot off the
brake and just set off down the track with unbelievable acceleration.’

However, he is being overly modest: in effect, what the report was saying was that Hammond’s driving ability was so acutely developed that outside of the realms of a racing professional or indeed a jet-car professional, his reaction times could not have been better. Even then, his reaction and decision-making was so adept and swift that the difference between his reactions and those of a jet-car racer’s was small. In other words, there appears to be a clear implication that but for this innate ability, he may not have survived the crash.

Speaking in 2010, the original Stig Perry McCarthy said that although all three presenters were very capable drivers, Hammond probably just edged the other two in terms of talent and skill. The Formula 1 legend David Coulthard, who has appeared on
Top Gear
a number of times and is a fan of the show, concurs all three presenters are extremely competent behind the wheel, as he told the author for this book: ‘I would imagine that with that huge amount of industry knowledge and experience, you can’t help but be good drivers. Being a good road driver and being a good circuit driver are two different things altogether. I’m a good circuit driver, but I’m not a particularly good road driver – those three are clearly able to do elements of both.’

The renowned neuroscientist Dr Kerry Spackman has worked in motorsport, including for Formula 1 teams such as McLaren and Jaguar, for years now. He said that it appears Hammond’s driving ability was indeed exceptional: ‘When it’s under pressure, the brain will do whatever is automatic, consciousness is too slow. Consciousness takes you time, it’s a big overhead. That’s the difference between a good tennis player and a bad tennis player: for example, I have to think about all my shots and what I’m doing, whereas for a professional tennis player, it’s all
automatic: you don’t have to think about how to walk, you just get up and your legs do what they do. But a baby has to think about that process, which is why it stutters and stumbles, and its legs are all out of control. So that’s the first point: consciousness is very, very slow.

‘So, when you’re under extreme pressure – for example, in an accident when the world’s not working and you’re about to die, the brain just relies on automatic reflexes. [Hammond’s reaction] is a remarkable achievement and whether [it’s because] he had mentally rehearsed the things or was really well briefed … but it’s extraordinary and the average person would have got it wrong.’

Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live, the world land speed record holder, RAF fighter pilot Andy Green, said this: ‘It’s a very brave thing of Richard to do to step into a very skilled, very specialist sport, pretty much from cold. He would obviously have had some practice but he hasn’t lived with this, he hasn’t developed the car, he hasn’t been part of it for a long time.’

At such a high velocity, the complex engineering is
mind-boggling
: drag increases exponentially with speed, so at 300mph even the dirt on a car can cause drag. At that moment your world is travelling at nearly 450 feet per second: that Hammond was able to react in any way that might have contributed to lessening the crash’s impact is remarkable.

As we have seen,
Top Gear
has always attracted a wealth of criticism from various quarters and Richard’s accident was a golden ticket for some of the show’s more critical observers. Long before any investigation had been completed, fairly predictable calls of recklessness were hurled the BBC’s way, even though preparations had clearly been meticulous.

When Richard was critically ill, Andy Wilman said there would
be no more
Top Gear
without the three presenters’ full line-up; he also quashed rumours that the accident might mean that they would have to tone down the show’s more outrageous features (it’s the
Two Fat Ladies
mentality again). No doubt, the inevitable calls for the show to be dropped didn’t help Hammond’s recovery. When talk inevitably turned to the actual footage and his job as a
Top Gear
presenter, many media observers felt it would be ghoulish and inappropriate to show footage of the crash. But
Top Gear
disagreed and on 28 January 2007, for the first episode of Series 9 they broadcast both the crash and a full interview with Hammond, explaining what happened and what it had felt like. For his part, although the presenter admitted to being apprehensive, he insisted that he felt it would be ‘irresponsible’ if they didn’t broadcast the film and address the aftermath. Inevitably, the critics’ barbed pens were sharpened ready for action when he returned to the programme in what seemed a remarkably quick time.

Rather than shy away from the accident, though,
Top Gear
confronted it full-on. Alongside features on the new Jaguar XKR, the Aston Martin Vantage and roadworks, the team interviewed Hammond on the crash. They started by mentioning that even with their ‘limited knowledge of television, they knew not to show the crash footage until the end of the show, otherwise everyone would just switch over and watch the finale of
Big Brother
.’ Clarkson then made a gag about Hammond becoming Princess Diana – it was good to see nothing had changed.

They then said that Richard had insisted they didn’t make a fuss and with a deep note of sincerity behind Jeremy’s introduction of, ‘I didn’t think I’d ever be saying this at one point,’ Hammond was given a champion boxer’s entrance, complete with dancing girls, a grand staircase and fireworks. To a rapturous welcome he came into the studio and said his
introduction was the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to him.

He appeared to be normal, so Clarkson then asked what he contends is the big question: ‘Are you now a mental?’ Following this, May offered him a tissue in case he started to dribble. Perhaps not entirely surprisingly, afterwards there were some complaints. A spokesperson for Headway, the brain injury association, said: ‘There are survivors with brain injuries who dribble following their accident and this is not something to joke about. It really was offensive and insulting to all those people living with brain injuries and their carers.’

Meanwhile, Hammond made light of his injuries, saying, ‘The only difference between me now and before the crash is that I like celery now and I didn’t before.’ Clarkson then selflessly offered to do all the supercar challenges in future! After a moving thank you from Hammond to the nurses, hospital,
well-wishers
and
Top Gear
fans, the show simply moved on to resume ‘normal service’ and in this case, a side-splittingly funny feature about roadworks.

It is not until the end of the show that the trio sit down on their old leather car seats to talk about ‘the little fella’s car crash’. Hammond joked that the fuel pump was from a concrete mixer and the gear box came out of a Reliant Robin. It’s then that the most prophetic TV presenter intro ever was broadcast: Hammond was shown sitting in the cockpit, talking about the 10,000bhp that will be behind him if he presses the afterburner switch which might lead, he adds unwittingly, to ‘the biggest accident you’ve ever seen in your life.’ Then again, Colin Fallows is seen strapping Hammond in, ‘in case he goes upside down.’

When he first fired up the jet engine, Hammond said it was terrifying. He somehow managed to commentate on his first run almost all the way down the runway, despite doing 220mph. For
the first afterburner run, he was noticeably quieter, his eyes a deep-set focus of concentration (he nearly cried). Not surprisingly, as this was actually 314mph. They then showed the crash, which was met by stunned silence in the studio. Even so, much merriment follows – Clarkson says he could have held it – before Jezza makes an endearing and genuine toast to The Hamster, welcoming him back.

In fact, Hammond’s doctor had been somewhat apprehensive about his patient seeing the video footage, but Hammond’s own view was that it hadn’t killed him, so why should it be a problem now? He has also pointed out that many of the challenges on the show contain an element of risk and that all three presenters are accustomed to this: ‘We spend our lives minimising risk, so that’s what I couldn’t believe – that it had actually gone wrong.’ Naturally, they were bound to have some fun on the first show back, but at the same time the show was eager to make it clear there was nothing funny behind all the japery: ‘Just because we make light of it on the show,’ said Hammond later, ‘don’t think for a second I make light of it myself because I don’t – it was bloody horrible.’

Both he and the team rightly point out that although there had been criticism of the
Top Gear
challenges, in fact although the tyre blow-out led to the hideous crash, preparations went to plan: the car’s safety equipment worked brilliantly, the medical team were on the scene in seconds, they had the correct equipment to deal with the incident, the helicopter was able to take him to a hospital within minutes, the crash helmet did its job, and so on. ‘I’m living proof that safety works,’ he insisted.

Although Hammond and his team promised on that particular show that the crash would never be mentioned again, of course this has not been the case. In fact, it cropped up in 2009, when they were discussing Felipe Massa’s near-fatal F1 crash that year,
it was mentioned after a review of a Bentley and most comically of all, it was referenced hilariously when the trio were buying cars suitable for teenage boys and spent an afternoon in the
Top Gear
office phoning around insurance companies while pretending to be seventeen. At one point, Hammond is asked by the call centre if he’s had any accidents in the past five years … cue a cheeky raise of the eyebrows and a pause before he said, ‘Er, no.’

The surprise at his remarkable recovery was widespread; however, eighteen months after the crash, Richard revealed that in fact the longer-term effects were much more invasive than he’d at first realised. Speaking to the
Daily Mail
, he admitted that he still suffered emotional problems and memory loss issues – for example, one day he forgot all the PIN numbers to his cards. He said that he struggled ‘mortally with depression’ and still spoke regularly to a psychiatrist; he then went so far as to say that his brain needed to re-wire itself to fully recover. The physical swelling and immediate physical damage had gone but internally, there was still much to recover. He’d damaged the part of the brain that controls spatial awareness and revealed that he now finds it difficult to park his car.

Neuroscientist Dr Kerry Spackman is not surprised: ‘I’m not sure of the severity [of his head injury] but it appears to be a mild traumatic head injury. This is not actually ‘mild’, it’s severe but this term just means his skull didn’t crack open and his brains didn’t come out. In this instance, where [the person has] effectively banged their brain around, it is a common and
well-known
occurrence that depression happens. It’s not that a person is down, it’s actually that they’ve given the brain such a rattle that part of that whole protective mechanism [kicks in]. It’s nothing to do with the person’s mood or anything like that, it’s just what happens. So, a lot of people with bad head
injuries will have some kind depression, couple that with the fact he’s had a very severe head injury … it really depends, it’s the luck of the draw.’

Dr Spackman also points out that when the head is decelerated at such a velocity, it’s really a highly precarious and dangerous time: ‘If, for example, I run straight into a brick wall face first and my head jerks forward, sometimes the damage is at the other side of the brain, at the back of your head because all the fluid runs forward and that squashes forward and pushes the head backwards, so you get a bang at the back of the head, even though you’ve run into something at the front. When the brain gets banged around, it’s a horrible business and it’s not obvious where the damage is going to be. Particularly if [as with Hammond] a car has rolled and bounced.’