The Grand Tour season two: is Jeremy Clarkson back at his best?

The second season of Jeremy Clarkson’s Amazon Prime motoring show, The Grand Tour, premiered last night - and proved an instant hit with both fans and critics.

The opening episode saw Clarkson and co-hosts Richard Hammond and James May take three supercars across Switzerland before entering a hill-climb rally event.

Clarkson opted for Lamborghini’s V12-engined Aventador S, while May took the wheel of Honda’s hybrid NSX. Meanwhile, Hammond brought the all-electric Rimac Concept One -which he then crashed at the rally.

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Hammond’s accident was the “climax” of the season opener, says The Daily Telegraph, although there isn't actually any footage of the fiery crash, “because their camera crew missed it”.

The “well-publicised” accident - which left Hammond in hospital with a fractured knee - was the most dramatic aspect of the “back-to-basics” episode, which brought a host of improvements over the first series, says the newspaper.

Gone is the “achingly unfunny” test driver, The American, while “the weekly Celebrity Braincrash comedy skit has been scrapped by popular demand”, adds the paper.

“Some parts were slightly flat”, says The Times, but “the production values remain high” and the trio’s “matesy bickering drove the episode”.

The new episode also proved popular on Twitter.

The second series of The Grand Tour is being shown exclusively on the Amazon Prime subscription service, which costs £79 a year. All 13 episodes from the show’s first season are also available on the streaming service.