RICHARD Hammond has been spotted looking in great spirits while out in his Land Rover, following the split from his wife of 23 years.
The Top Gear star jumped in his car as part of a ride out organised by the Smallest Cog garage that he owns in Hereford.
The Sun understands that Richard’s newspaper columnist wife Mindy, 59, demanded the divorce after a source claimed she "wanted him gone".
The news was shared by Top Gear star Hammond, 55, on an X account shared by the pair.
Brushing off his marriage woes, Richard was spotted in a brown coat and wrapped up for the winter in a hat and scarf.
He flashed a smile as he grabbed hold of the wheel and drove in his car which says ‘follow me’ and ‘escort vehicle’ along the side.
A string of similar cars followed Richard’s as they all rode along on the drive out.
Richard and his wife’s split statement read: “A little update from us; this Christmas we were together as a family and this year we will still be a family but just structured a bit differently.
"Our marriage is coming to end, but we've had an amazing 28 years together and two incredible daughters.
"We will always be in each other's lives and are proud of the family we created.
"We won't be commenting further and sincerely hope that our privacy and that of our children will be respected at this time. With Love, Richard and Mindy."
It is believed Mindy is asking to keep their £7million Bollitree Castle estate, in Herefordshire, as they draw up divorce settlements.
The source told The Sun: “Richard is very upset about all this. It seems he has tried hard to rekindle the relationship but to no avail.
“There is no speculation that any third party is involved.”
Richard’s daughter has branded her dad an ‘idiot’ while also saying he was ‘never really there.’
On a podcast, Richard’s daughter Izzy was asked: “Would you call your dad a daredevil or an idiot?”
While appearing on Ben Fowler’s Road To Success, she replied: “We've done handbrake turns around roundabouts, sorry I know that's incredibly illegal you might have to cut that out. He's an idiot.”
She continued: “He has that thing that racing drivers have where they just don't have the fear. Everyone has that line where it's like ‘okay I know where the line is’, he just doesn't have that. He really genuinely would just go and go and go.”
She also discussed how he “wasn’t there a lot” when she and her sister Willow, 22, were growing up.
Richard’s daughter went on: “I always think it must be frustrating for my mum because probably some of my happiest memories are ironically with my dad because he wasn't there that much because he was filming.
“He wasn't there a lot and that's all I really knew growing up.
“I mean I'm not this is sounding like I had some awful childhood, I really didn't at all.
“I think my parents were really good at navigating because they had no idea what was going to happen.
“But they were very good at sort of drip feeding information so we'd know a bit what he was doing but not enough to worry us because most of the time they were doing stupid stuff that we really shouldn't know about.”
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