The first pictures of Richard Hammond�s 288mph crash have been published by Top Gear magazine.

The images show the rocket car Hammond was driving flipping over after a tyre had burst forcing it to skew sidewards.

In the magazine Hammond tried to imagine the moments before the crash which have now been wiped from his memory.

He said: �I will have taken a few deep breaths on the start line as the engine roared and my thumb hovered over the afterburner switch.

"Then I will have hit it and 10,000 horsepower will have hurled me towards the horizon and up to 280mph. The rest is, I'm afraid, history."

Video footage of the crash will be shown on Top Gear which returns to BBC2 on January 28.