I thought I was going to die, says TV star in fiery smash

FORMER Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond has said he thought he was going to die in a horror crash in the Swiss mountains this month.

Hammond, 47, suffered a fractured knee before escaping the burning wreck of a $1.2 million Rimac Concept One electric supercar in Switzerland while filming The Grand Tour.

The car burst into flames just before he escaped.

Speaking on DriveTribe, he said: “I was aware that I was up high, and that inevitably the car was going to come down. And, yeah, of course there was a moment of dread — ‘Oh God, I’m going to die’.

“And also I was aware that the car was taking just such a beating. I mean if you look at those craters, that’s a big hole that’s just impact and it looks like the thing has been dropped from space to leave a hole that big.

“So yeah, I was probably going, ‘Well this is it’.

“In fact that is what was going through my mind. I thought, ‘I’ve had it’.”

He said of his escape: “I was wriggling and writhing to get out, which was a bit difficult because I had a normal seat belt on, not a harness.”

Fellow presenters Jeremy Clarkson and James May were present and feared Hammond was dead.

Hammond suffered brain damage in a rocket car accident a decade ago and was badly hurt in a motorbike crash in Mozambique in March.