Richard Hammond predicts Top Gear return
Richard Hammond has "no doubt" 'Top Gear' will be back.
The 54-year-old presenter fronted the long-running motoring show - which first aired in 1977 - from when it was rebooted after a brief break in 2002 until 2015 and following the news the BBC were cutting the programme in the wake of host Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff's horror car accident, the star is confident it won't be gone for good.
He told the Daily Star Sunday newspaper: “I have no doubt 'Top Gear' will come back, probably quite soon. It’s been on air before, then it’s come off and they rest it a bit and then they brought it back.
"That’ll happen again. It’s not the end. It’s a BBC brand.”
But if the show does return, Richard - who left 'Top Gear' along with co-hosts Jeremy Clarkson and James May to front 'The Grand Tour' for Prime Video - thinks it will have a "different slant".
He added: “I think when it comes back, it’ll have a different slant. During our stewardship, it grew into what it was.
“But it wasn’t that before and it doesn’t have to be again.”
Richard's comments come after James recently called for more motoring shows on TV - but insisted now he and his co-hosts are ending 'The Grand Tour', they are "too old" to host them anymore.
The 61-year-old star told The Sun newspaper's TV Biz column: "If you wanted to make a serious, slightly more consumerish car show there’s never been a better time for it because it’s a very interesting topic.
“What is going to happen to the car, car ownership, attitudes to the car, how we use it, dispose of it, how we power it?
"It’s all interesting stuff, it’s the most interesting time in the car’s history since it was invented. So I can’t believe somewhere or other, a slightly more modern car show won’t emerge.
“But we can’t do it as we’re too old.”