Richard Hammond and Mate Rimac had a long chat with Alistair Weaver about what happened in Switzerland, which revealed that The Grand Tour's luckiest host probably wouldn't be talking today if it wasn't for the Concept One's extremely rigid carbon fiber passenger cell.
According to Hammond, on their fifth day in Switzerland testing the Lamborghini Aventador S, the Acura NSX and the Rimac Concept One back to back, he went for a last run up the hillclimb course, losing control just after crossing the finish line.
His speed in the 1224 horsepower Concept One was gradually rising after each of his four previous runs throughout the day, and in that final corner, Mate Rimac believes Hammond pushed the car's torque vectoring system into oversteering by trying to turn in at an overly ambitious pace. Hammond does not understand how that happened, claiming the car has been understeering during all of his previous attempts. What's certain is that after the back end stepped out, the rear tires ran out of asphalt almost immediately, launching the car off the mountain and crashing into the road 100 feet below.
That was the first hard impact, after which the Concept One started to roll, traveling some 500 feet and missing three houses along the way thanks to the direction of the slopes. The car also dug quite a few craters into the ground while losing speed and altitude.
Inside, Richard Hammond was wearing a helmet, but no racing harnesses. He remained conscious all along, while his knee joint probably collapsed as he was bracing himself before coming to a stop upside down.
Soon after Hammond told the emergency team to drag him out of the car by his hands instead of his legs, the Concept One burst into flames, melting into a pile of metal and plastic before the firefighters could put out the chemical fire.
Mate Rimac believes the fact that the passenger cell remained intact proves how safe his supercar is, although the company will look into how they could prevent a fire from happening even in such extreme circumstances.
Since Rimac has only built eight Concept Ones and this one was a customer car (just like the one we rode in), the number of Rimacs out there is now down to seven. The destroyed example will still appear in the second season of The Grand Tour, as filming was done by the time of Hammond's last run.
Rimac will build up to 200 of its upcoming, even more powerful electric car to make sure they have plenty of spares the next time one "gets away" from a celebrity.
