Richard Hammond, the Top Gear host critically injured on Wednesday in what is possibly Britain’s fastest car crash, has eaten cornflakes, walked, talked and recognised his co-presenter James May as a “****face”.

His brain had shut down after the crash but now it’s rebooting. It’s coming back to life.

It therefore seems likely that soon, in a matter of weeks maybe, the Hamster will be back on his feet and ready to start work. The question is: will he have a show to go back to?

As I write, swarms of bureaucratic bluebottles are nibbling away at the crash site on a York airfield, desperately trying to find some reason why Top Gear should be banished from the screens. Yes, they want to know why the accident happened and whether anything might be done to prevent such a thing from happening again.

But most of all, most of the people want to know who was to blame. On Thursday one of the team said rather menacingly: “With a crash of this magnitude someone’s head has to roll . . .”

Meanwhile, The Guardian and certain parts of the BBC are saying that there’s no way back for Top Gear now. They’ve dredged up all the alleged misdemeanours in the past, said the crash was the final straw and are now saying the programme will have to be scrapped or dramatically neutered.

So even though the crash failed to kill Hammond, the forces are massing to destroy the show that made his name.

I first heard of the accident as I was doing a rather pedestrian 175mph in an Aston Martin round the programme’s test track in Surrey. The producer, Andy Wilman, called from the central London edit suite to say that Hammond had had what he called “a big one”.

But there was no sense of urgency. Yes, on his previous run he’d reached a speed of 315mph and there was every chance he’d been doing a similar speed when the accident began. And yes, he’d rolled over several times before coming to rest upside down with his helmet full of soil and his head buried in the earth. What’s more, he had been unconscious when the paramedics arrived.

But he’d come round, insisted that he should do a “piece to camera” and had even had a fight with the air ambulance crew who thought that on balance it’d be better if he got on the stretcher to go to hospital in Leeds. Richard’s like that. He spends most of his spare time fighting.

I was therefore not even slightly worried. Nor was I embarrassed that just 40 minutes earlier I’d called his mobile phone and left a message saying: “As I haven’t heard from you, I can only presume you’re dead.”

He’d hear it in the helicopter and call me back to say he had just driven 100mph faster than I’d ever managed. We’re a bit competitive like that, Hammond and I.

I therefore toddled up to London, and met friends for dinner in the Wolseley. But as I sat down to a delicious plate of oysters, Richard Hammond’s brain was starting to swell.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Swine flu vaccine for all as drug rushed through
• Artificial sperm and the race to build a baby
• BBC jets out stars to tout for prizes