Updated June 12, 2017 12:54:44

Grand Tour presenter and former Top Gear host Richard Hammond, who on Sunday escaped serious injury in a fiery crash while filming, has thanked the medical professionals from his hospital bed in Switzerland.

Hammond was airlifted to hospital with a fractured knee, after the Rimac Concept One electric supercar caught fire, reducing it to a twisted, blackened mess.

He crashed after completing a climb during a demonstration run at the Hemberg hill race in the east of the alpine country.

"Yes, it's true, I've binned it. Again," he joked in a video.

Hammond said he was hoping the doctors could give him "a Swiss Army knee" during surgery today, and apologised to his wife Mindy and two daughters.

The show said no-one else was involved, and the cause of the crash was under investigation.

Hammond hosts the adrenaline-fueled car show with Jeremy Clarkson and James May. The trio are the former hosts of the BBC program Top Gear.

Clarkson wrote in an article in Drive Tribe that Hammond had been driving the car on motorways, airfields and closed mountain roads for four days.

"He knew the car well, he knew how fast it was, and he knew how to handle it in the bends," Clarkson wrote.

"I don't know what went wrong. Hopefully, when he comes out of surgery and is feeling up to it, he will be able to tell us.

"What I do know is that I genuinely thought he was dead."

In 2006, Hammond suffered a brain injury when he crashed in a rocket-powered dragster while filming Top Gear.

He had been attempting to break the British land speed record at an airfield when the vehicle veered of the track, tumbled over and ploughed into the grass.

He recovered and returned to the show a few months later.

Photo: The Rimac Concept One electric supercar caught fire, reducing it to a twisted, blackened mess. (AP: Freuds)

ABC/AP

Topics: disasters-and-accidents, accidents, arts-and-entertainment, health, doctors-and-medical-professionals, switzerland

First posted June 12, 2017 11:31:18