7 Questions with… Richard Hammond: Grand Tour star on desert island TV show, swimming with sharks and James May’s spam fritters

Richard Hammond is taking a break from smashing cars, bickering with James May and Jeremy Clarkson and, well, crashing more cars for a new TV series on Amazon Prime Video called The Great Escapists.

Hammond teams up with Tory Belleci, star of the addictive American TV series Mythbusters, to take a look at science and engineering in a way that's never been done before.

Marooned on a desert island with only the wreckage of a boat, some Richard Hammond autobiographies and a load of gin to sustain them, the duo only have their science and engineering skills to help them survive.

Watch our interview with Richard Hammond above to hear more about the series, how he ended up swimming with sharks and his thoughts on Clarkson and May’s

“The show is about fun,” Hammond told BT.com.

“The science is correct and rigorous and the engineering is true, but above all else, we’re saying come with us for a ride.”

When asked who would survive the longest on a desert island out of Clarkson and May, he joked: “I don’t know. Probably best to tie them to different posts on an island and see.”

What is The Great Escapists?

The series follows Richard and Tory as they masterfully construct their exotic wonderland using what they have from the shipwreck and what they can find on the island.

Each episode will see them take on huge feats of engineering to achieve epic builds in what will be a once in a lifetime operation for the two lovers of science, engineering and making the impossible, possible. The duo's hare-brained builds will range from island hopping vehicles to a supersized hydro-power waterwheel.

Describing the series, Richard Hammond said: "It’s a big one, a noise-maker. It’s not often you get to work on something genuinely new, but this is genuinely new because it’s a mash-up of pop science, engineering, survival and drama.

"It’s two guys off two of the biggest pop science shows ever – myself and Tory Belleci – who’ve been cast away on a desert island. Thanks to their pop science knowledge, they are surviving.

"Not only surviving but sur-thriving. They wash up on this island then gradually build bits and pieces to help them firstly find food, shelter and water, but then they increasingly build a more and more luxurious place to live with better toys to make their lives better, or great Hooch."

Watch The Great Escapists now on Amazon Prime Video.