Richard Hammond was left at a loose end when Jeremy Clarkson was sacked from Top Gear and he and James May subsequently decided to go with him.
But it seems that the the TV presenter’s job may have already been on the line.
The car show’s former executive producer Andy Wilman, who also left the BBC show after the Clarkson debacle, has revealed that bosses had considered axing Hammond after the first series of the reboot back in 2002.
‘The BBC management had a wobble about Richard,’ he wrote in the latest issue of Top Gear magazine.