Richard Hammond was to blame for the high speed crash in which he nearly lost his life, claims the dragster's owner.
The Top Gear presenter stands accused of applying the brakes too soon and failing to release the car's safety parachute by Colin Fallows of Primetime Landspeed Engineering, who owns the high power vehicle.
"Once these cars are in motion, you don't touch the brakes," he told the Sun. Mr Fallows added that the 37-year-old had turned "a controllable incident" into "a major accident".
The pint-sized car enthusiast lost control of the car when a tyre burst as he was travelling at 288mph and was propelled off the track.
The presenter known as 'the Hamster' was airlifted from the York airfield to hospital and initial brain swelling caused doctors to fear that he would be left with permanent brain damage.
However, Hammond staged a remarkable recovery and was out of hospital within weeks. Last night, a special edition of Top Gear was aired on the BBC, showing the crash on national television for the first time.
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