Jeremy Clarkson’s The Grand Tour Season 3: release date, what to expect and Season 4 changes

The final countdown has begun until Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May return to Amazon Prime in the third season of The Grand Tour.

The subscription streaming service had been keeping quiet about the new series of the motoring show, with just the odd hint from the presenters about what is in store.

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Fans’ patience was rewarded with the release of a teaser trailer in November that offered a glimpse of the trio’s latest adventures.

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Now, as the clock ticks down until the new series hits our screens on 18 January, here’s what else we can expect:

When will it air?

Season three will be aired exclusively on Amazon Prime on a weekly basis from the January launch date. Amazon has yet to confirm how many episodes fans can expect, but season 1 ran for 13 weeks, while season 2 featured 11 episodes.

What can we expect?

Crashes and chaos, judging by the explosive preview trailer.

The trailer opens with Hammond cautiously driving a pickup truck along a rickety wooden bridge over a canyon in Colombia. The clip then cuts to Clarkson and May cruising along on a road while laughing over Hammond’s predicament - a scene that chimes with the trio’s motto: “Always leave a man behind.”

The former Top Gear stars are also seen driving muscle cars, classics and dune buggies. A host of new supercars appear in the trailer, too, including the Lamborghini Urus and McLaren’s £750,000 Senna.

Among the locations featured are Detroit, Nevada, Sweden and Scotland, The Independent reports.

Hammond told Metro last month that the team also stop by in China and Mongolia.

Meanwhile, Clarkson has posted a series of videos of himself dressed as a Belgian parking warden called David Souffle.

And May has been leaving fans a few pointers on motoring social media site DriveTribe. The presenter’s most recent posts include an image showing him inside the cockpit of a stunt plane, along with snaps of a yellow Lexus LC500 and the air vents of a classic car.

How can we watch it?

Only members of the Amazon Prime service, which costs £7.99 per month, can access The Grand Tour. The service offers a 30-day free trial, and students can get half-price membership.

Will there be a fourth season?

Clarkson confirmed in December that the upcoming third season of The Grand Tour would not be the last.

It had been rumoured that Amazon - which reportedly paid £160m for a three-series deal in 2015 - would be dropping the show, owing to high running costs.

But in a message to his 7.12 million followers on Twitter, the former Top Gear star said that he and his two co-presenters had struck a deal with Amazon to produce a fourth series.

However, the show is due to undergo a significant shake-up.

According to The Sun, the trio will no longer host the show from a studio in season four.

After filming the final studio segment, a “choked up” Clarkson told the newspaper: “It’s a really sad day. I will miss the banter with each other and with the audience.

“But we’ve been doing that show for effectively 17 years - sitting around in studios, watching cars race around the track. We all agreed that we’ve been doing it a long time and everything eventually runs its course.”

Instead, the trio will be focusing on road trip specials similar to their journey across Mozambique in the second season.