The planned second series of ‘The Grand Tour’ will inevitably be affected by Richard Hammond’s broken knee that he sustained in a recent high-speed car crash, his colleague Jeremy Clarkson has admitted.

47 year old Hammond was extremely fortunate to escape with his life after he careered off a Swiss mountainside at 120mph in his £2 million electric supercar, which burst into flames.

While he sustained little more than a broken knee in terms of injuries, it does mean that he is currently unable to drive, putting a big question mark over the second series of his Amazon Prime show ‘The Grand Tour’, which he co-hosts with his former ‘Top Gear’ colleagues Clarkson and James May.

Richard HammondRichard Hammond in 2015

Writing on the motoring website DriveTribe on Wednesday (June 14th), Clarkson said: “Many of you have been asking if Hammond’s broken knee will affect the filming for season two of ‘The Grand Tour’, and the short answer is: yes.”

Hammond has since apologised to his wife and children after initial reports suggested that he had died, joking that he was “not dead” in a video filmed from his hospital bed in Switzerland.

More: Richard Hammond apologises to his wife and daughters after dramatic high speed crash

“As I write, James May is sitting in the hell hole that is Gatwick Airport waiting for a budget airline to take him to a shoot that Hammond should have been doing,” Clarkson continued. “Meanwhile, I’ve been up since dawn, rewriting all of the scripts and ideas we had to accommodate the fact that Hammond can’t drive for the next few months. Meanwhile, he is lying in a bed in the Swiss Alps, while pretty nurses attend to give his every need, and give him drugs.”

The trademark humour the trio became known for is clearly intact, but when they first saw the aftermath of the fiery crash last week, Clarkson admitted that he and May genuinely feared the worst.

Initially, he thought that it was a test driver in a yellow Lamborghini Aventador that had crashed, but he and May soon realised that it was Hammond’s white Rimac.

“And as I stood there, waiting for news, it dawned on me that the burning car was not yellow, as the Aventador was. It was white. Hammond's Rimac had been white. And I can feel it now; the coldness. My knees turning to jelly. It was Hammond who'd crashed.”

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