James May has explained why he’s ended his TV partnership with Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond . The trio first started working together on BBC ’s Top Gear in 2002 and moved over to Amazon for Prime Video series The Grand Tour , which premiered in 2016. However, a recent special of the car show, titled One for the Road, is the swansong for the trio’s onscreen partnership – and May has reflected on why they have decided to cut ties professionally.
According to May, a part of the appeal was the fact they came to the decision on their own terms, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We are getting on a bit and everything does have to end. To be honest, we wanted to end it on our own terms. As we always used to say, ‘We want to land it safely, not fly it into a cliff.
’” May said that he believes the trio have “largely exhausted our take on the subject”, adding: “Not the subject itself. There’s space, I think, for a new approach to it, but it can’t come from us. We’re a bit too stuck in our way of doing it.
” When asked if that subject was cars of “the friendship between three men”, May said: “I sometimes wonder if it is the friendship – we wind each other up so badly – but it definitely started out as cars and our enthusiasm for them and even, dare I say it, our knowledge of them. “But it is also about human relationships. And without wishing to sound pretentious, also the human condition – a view of what life means from the pers.