Richard Hammond hasn’t ruled out returning to ‘Top Gear’ with Jeremy Clarkson and James May.

Richard Hammond hasn’t ruled out returning to Top Gear with Jeremy Clarkson and James May.

Richard Hammond hasn’t ruled out returning to Top Gear with Jeremy Clarkson and James May.

The 54-year-old TV star, who hosted the BBC car show from 2002 to 2015 alongside his co-presenters, is set to retire from motoring programming after the final special is released for ‘The Grand Tour’. However, Hammond has revealed that the trio reprising their presenting roles on ‘Top Gear’ isn’t out of the question.

When the Daily Mirror newspaper asked if a return to the show was possible, he said: “I don't know. I have no doubt ‘Top Gear’ will come back one day. Somebody will pick it up and run with it. It’ll be a different show.”

Hammond, Clarkson and May are all gearing up for their penultimate special together, ‘The Grand Tour: Sand Job’, which will see the trio cross the Sahara and take on the challenging climate of Mauritania in west Africa, all while following the route of the Paris-Dakar rally.

Reflecting on the episode, the host said: “It was great to be back out somewhere a bit tough. We couldn't fall back on our incredible crew to capture a remote or hostile place. We had to fall back more on the relationship between us three and the banter and the nonsense.

"I know how to push their buttons. They know how to push mine. We're passionate about what we do. If we'd all really fallen out we couldn’t do the job, could we?”

Hammond was also quizzed on ending his 22-year-long motoring TV career with his co-presenters, and explained that the trio felt that it was the right time to finish.

He explained: “We decided a long time ago. The one thing we wanted to be in control of is deciding when and where and how we landed.”

‘The Grand Tour: Sand Job’ is available to stream on Prime Video now.