Photo: The Grand Tour via Twitter
Now that the dust has settled over the whole Richard Hammond versus the Swiss Alps incident, we can begin to look more carefully into what exactly happened and, more importantly, why.
The good news is that Richard Hammond is alive and well - actually, he was brave enough to go face to face with Matte Rimac, the CEO of Rimac Automobili, the maker of the electric hypercar he was driving at the moment of his unintentional short flight.
In an exclusive interview for the Drive Tribe, the two discussed the events that took place a little over two weeks ago which concluded with a broken left knee for the TV presenter and a completely totaled hypercar. Plus a really messed up pasture somewhere in the Alps, but you might not care too much about that. Of course you don't, you're not a hungry purple cow.
"And yeah, of course there was a moment of dread - 'Oh God, I'm going to die,'" Hammond recollects, which is probably the latest to add to a seemingly ever-growing list of such moments. In case you forgot, Hammond was nearly killed when the dragster he drove crashed at almost 300 mph.
But that didn't stop him from hopping into really fast cars and driving them like they're supposed to, at least to the limit of his abilities. Part of those limits were to blame for the Alps crash, as his talk with Matte Rimac reveals.
The CEO pointed out that Hammond went way too fast in that corner. He also gathered the data from the vehicle which showed how Hammond grew more and more confident with each climb, raising his average speed with every new attempt.
In that particular corner, Hammond first entered with a speed of 108 km/h (67 mph), but he was doing 134 km/h (83 mph) when the tires decided they've had enough and went home. “The torque vectoring makes the car go where you point the steering wheel," Matte explains. |So when you went into that left-hand corner, you were way too fast and you would turn the steering wheel more than the car can take, more than physic can take with the tires, the weight of the car, and so on.”
Hammond did say why he did what he did, and knowing what the Grand Tour is like, it makes perfect sense. He said that after five days with the Concept_One, he failed to make the car go sideways at least once. This probably irritated him, and so he took it as a challenge.
This insight might give Matte Rimac something to think about. It wouldn't be at all unwise to include a drifting mode - a setting where the torque vectoring system takes a break and allows the rear of the car to slide out, at least a little.
The owner of the crashed car might be the first to benefit from such an addition to future Rimac cars. Since only eight Concept_Ones have been built so far and none are available, the company is unable to offer a replacement. However, we suspect he's made it to the top of the waiting list, if that's any consolation. Perhaps he should take one of Hammond's cars as a courtesy ride.
In an exclusive interview for the Drive Tribe, the two discussed the events that took place a little over two weeks ago which concluded with a broken left knee for the TV presenter and a completely totaled hypercar. Plus a really messed up pasture somewhere in the Alps, but you might not care too much about that. Of course you don't, you're not a hungry purple cow.
"And yeah, of course there was a moment of dread - 'Oh God, I'm going to die,'" Hammond recollects, which is probably the latest to add to a seemingly ever-growing list of such moments. In case you forgot, Hammond was nearly killed when the dragster he drove crashed at almost 300 mph.
But that didn't stop him from hopping into really fast cars and driving them like they're supposed to, at least to the limit of his abilities. Part of those limits were to blame for the Alps crash, as his talk with Matte Rimac reveals.
The CEO pointed out that Hammond went way too fast in that corner. He also gathered the data from the vehicle which showed how Hammond grew more and more confident with each climb, raising his average speed with every new attempt.
In that particular corner, Hammond first entered with a speed of 108 km/h (67 mph), but he was doing 134 km/h (83 mph) when the tires decided they've had enough and went home. “The torque vectoring makes the car go where you point the steering wheel," Matte explains. |So when you went into that left-hand corner, you were way too fast and you would turn the steering wheel more than the car can take, more than physic can take with the tires, the weight of the car, and so on.”
Hammond did say why he did what he did, and knowing what the Grand Tour is like, it makes perfect sense. He said that after five days with the Concept_One, he failed to make the car go sideways at least once. This probably irritated him, and so he took it as a challenge.
This insight might give Matte Rimac something to think about. It wouldn't be at all unwise to include a drifting mode - a setting where the torque vectoring system takes a break and allows the rear of the car to slide out, at least a little.
The owner of the crashed car might be the first to benefit from such an addition to future Rimac cars. Since only eight Concept_Ones have been built so far and none are available, the company is unable to offer a replacement. However, we suspect he's made it to the top of the waiting list, if that's any consolation. Perhaps he should take one of Hammond's cars as a courtesy ride.
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