I enjoyed S2E1, it felt like more of a return to the TG formula. It felt less forced.

That Rimac is amazing. Or WAS, I guess. I watched an interview with Hammond and the head of Rimac, who didn't seem too upset at all that their first production unit was destroyed. Apparently they learned a bunch from looking at the telemetry from the crash.

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Starting from scratch...

Do they know what happened since Hammond says he has no idea what happened and crashing after the finish seemed odd.

I didn't watch season 1 and probably wouldn't have watch this one except my stupid body spent all day yesterday trying to force something out of my digestive track. I knew there was nothing left in there after the first 3-4 hours, but apparently the body wanted to make sure for another 12.

The landscape visuals were great, almost as nice as watching three beautiful cars.

Whoever does the cinematography for the GT and former TG UK is (are, if it's a group) incredible.

Those 3 guys have the world’s best jobs. Get paid a boatload of money to drive the world’s best cars in beautiful locations and act like you’re in a high school locker room.

Was curious about the range on the Rimac. Obviously less than 200 miles given it was trailered to the hill climb.

I am pretty sure aesthetics are down to Wilman the fourth member of the team who went to Amazon

S2 ep 1 was light years better than anything I have seen in series 1 (only 3 episodes in)

The final disappearing up the road was amazing

And it wasn't even a company car...it was a customers car and they have flat out refused to build a replacement!

I originally watched the first three episodes of season 1 and then gave up as it was crap.
They recently showed the whole of season 1 here in Oz on the TV so I ended up watching it and it does get better

From what I remember of that interview, they basically said he was still on the throttle as he went through the slight right at the finish line, into a hard left afterwards. He induced more yaw than the torque vectoring system could handle, and when he tried to correct for the oversteer, the system basically launched him off the road. Or something like that.

Interview here.

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Starting from scratch...

Well they only made 7. Now there are just 6.
The next car they are making, they are planning on 200 units. He might be able to get on of them.

EDIT: 8 total, 7 remain. 4 in the US, 2 in the UK, 2 in the UAE. I'd bet only 1 in the UK now ;)

I agree it was better than season 1. They acknowledged some of the stuff that didn't work and moved back towards the tried and true TG formula.

Glad they got rid of the celebrity brain crash, and the "American" driver.

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Slowguy

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They are very limited in what they can do without getting sued by Top Gear. They can't copy any of the specific bits that TG is known for. I read somewhere that the lawyers told them specifically that they could not use an airfield for testing, could not use anyone even remotely similar to the Stig character, and could not have celebrities come on for interviews and timed laps. They must either figure that having two celebrities on at once and competing against each other is different enough from TG that they aren't worried, or they paid TG (of which Jeremy Clarkson is still a producer / part owner) a large sum of money to be able to do that.

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Starting from scratch...

I watched the first episode and enjoyed it, looks like a step up from Season 1. Season 1 wasn't bad but it could have been better. Amazon's virtually unlimited budget almost hurts them in a way, since they're no longer trying to get away with things... they can do whatever they like!

The sequence surrounding Hammond's crash was really tough to watch. I knew what was coming, but man. May and Clarkson giving him the 'pep talk' ahead of the run certainly didn't help. Hamster was visibly nervous ahead of the crash. The sequence kinda spoke for itself but I wish they had put the humor aside for a minute and acknowledged the various near death moments they each had in the last year.

Also interesting that they didn't talk more about what actually happened for in the crash, maybe that was being nice to Rimac since they totaled the car.

Looking forward to what they come up with next.

I saw an interview about the crash, and he talked about doing the multiple runs, and the producers had asked to do one more run, and of course, that's when he crashed.

I also have read that the hill climb organizers are in trouble, since the didn't follow all the rules when it came to the GT cars. Unlike what it looks like, they didn't sign up and just run the course like everyone else.

Even worse, when he was asked to do one more run, his response was something like "you won't be happy until one of us crashes, will you?" And he then proceeded to crash. Apparently that producer feels like absolute shit about the entire situation now.

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Starting from scratch...

one more hard hill climb run is kinda like one more drink at the bar. never a good idea, eh?

looking forward to the next 10? episodes. glad nobody seemed to be seriously injured.