Richard Hammond is burning through his spare lives like an alley cat trying to dance through New York traffic. He very nearly took himself out in 2006 when the jet dragster he was piloting had a front tire blowout, which wound up crashing out at 288 miles an hour. That incident that left him upside-down, partially embedded into the dirt and grass, and necessitated major medical care. Then there was the incident that occurred earlier this June, when he lost control of a Rimac Concept One electric supercar while making a pass at the Hemberg Bergrennen hill climb event in Switzerland. After losing the tail of the car at speed, Hammond launched the one-of-seven electric car off the side of a hill and went into a series of rollovers that culminated with the car in flames and Hammond on the way to the hospital to have his knee worked on.
In fairness to Hammond, incidents will happen in racing, no matter how skilled a driver you are. When the telemetry of the jet dragster crash was analyzed, it was proven that Hammond did everything right as quickly as he could from the moment the tire blew until the moment when the brown stuff hit the fan. For the Rimac crash, Rimac Automobili CEO Mate Rimac to discuss the crash itself in detail. For Rimac, the crash is a chance for the low-volume EV builder to work on safety improvements for current and future vehicles. For Hammond, it’s a chance to fully understand what happened, because from his perspective he was essentially like a shoe in a dryer until the car quit moving. Check it out below:
