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TV

Hammond brushes off fresh crash talk

11/09/2007

Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond has laughed off claims he was involved in another high-speed crash this weekend.

Reports suggested that the 37-year-old was caught up in another car accident a year after cheating death in a 288mph crash.

But Hammond himself has passed off the incident at Silverstone last Saturday as a "bit of a collision".

He explained that he was not injured after his BMW 330 DTi Sport skidded off the track in a 24-hour endurance race that co-presenters James May and Jeremy Clarkson were also taking part in.

"Reports of my shunt this weekend have been greatly exaggerated," he said.

"During one of my driving stints, a much faster car tried to overtake and there was a bit of a collision. It was nobody's fault.

"I managed to limp the car to the side of the track and wait for a truck to take me back to the pits, where it was quickly fixed."

Earlier a BBC spokesman insisted that Hammond had not been hurt, despite the £100,000 sports car being damaged.

"During the race, at night, Richard was driving and another car shunted him off the track," the representative explained.

"Richard wasn't hurt at all but the car was damaged. It was taken back to the pits and repaired before Richard carried on with the race."

The TV presenter, nicknamed Hamster, also denied salacious rumours that he had received a consoling hug from Clarkson.

"I would rather be hugged by a threshing machine and he would rather hug a chainsaw," he joked.

"He called me a t**t for crashing and I told him his race suit made him look like a hot air balloon. It's as simple as that."