Jeremy Clarkson update as he admits future ‘too difficult’

The former Top Gear and Grand Tour host has been at the forefront of motoring journalism for the best part of 40 years now.

He started out reviewing cars for local papers before landing a job on Top Gear in the 1980s.

With the initial show being axed, the presenter revived the famous BBC series with Andy Wilman in 2002.

Together with James May and Richard Hammond, the journalist and farmer grew Top Gear into one of the most successful shows worldwide.

He ended his TV motoring journalism career in 2024 on the Grand Tour, saying at the time he was not interested in reviewing electric cars that are now more widely available on the market.

JCB has announced it will attempt a new land speed record (Image: JCB)

But in his new column for the Sun, he summarised his views on hydrogen power after JCB achieved a new world land speed record with a run in its hydrogen-powered Hydromax.

Mr Clarkson write: “I keep being told that hydrogen will never be the fuel of the future.

“It’s too expensive to make, too difficult to transport and too impractical.

“But this week, I watched that JCB car spearing across the salt flats in America at 406mph, and I thought, ‘Yes. Hydrogen is difficult. But there’s a vehicle, powered by normal, internal combustion, and all that’s coming out of the exhaust is water.’

“As JF Kennedy once said: ‘We choose to go to the moon and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.’”

Set at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA, the record saw the Hydromax achieve 406.320mph, measured as an average from two high-speed runs. It’s the fastest that a hydrogen internal combustion car has ever gone.

The first saw the Hydromax reach 400.623mph, while a later run saw the vehicle hit 412.135 mph, which, when averaged, reached that figure of 406.320mph.

With Andy Green OBE – the only person to break the sound barrier on land – behind the wheel, the 32-foot car beat the previous official hydrogen internal combustion speed record by some measure. Set in 2004, it saw a BMW H2R reach 185.5mph.

This latest record also means that the Hydromax has overtaken the 350.092mph set by the JCB Dieselmax in 2006.

The Hydromax is driven by two hydrogen-powered engines that JCB also uses in its commercial diggers. Combined, they produce 1,600bhp.

Lord Anthony Bamford, JCB chairman, said: “Twenty years ago we came to Bonneville with JCB Dieselmax and showed what British engineering could do with diesel power. Today we have done it again — this time with engines powered by hydrogen.

“This record was set by production-based engines, the same engines powering JCB diggers right now. That is the point of JCB Hydromax: it shows hydrogen works, and it works today at the highest level with zero emissions.”

Andy Green added: “Bonneville is the spiritual home of the world land speed record, and JCB Hydromax has just written itself into that history. The car was terrific — stable, strong and fast. Setting a world land speed record with hydrogen power, twenty years after Dieselmax, is a huge privilege. This record is a huge achievement by a world class team and superb technology.”