'I won't quit my mates' - Richard Hammond tweet sparks fears he's left Top Gear

Richard Hammond is the last of Top Gear's presenting trio to leave show. Photo / NZPA / David Rowland

Richard Hammond has ruled out returning to Top Gear, becoming the final presenter to leave the motoring show as he vowed: "I won't quit my mates."

The presenter revealed that he would not be returning to the show just hours after former Top Gear producer Andy Wilman launched a scathing attack on "meddling" BBC executives.

Mr Wilman, writing in Top Gear Magazine a day after he quit the BBC himself, accused bosses of pressuring him to hire a female presenter before the show's 2002 relaunch.

The producer was yesterday pictured meeting Jeremy Clarkson, Hammond and James May shortly after the latter also quit the show, as the group held talks over their next move.

Not long later, Clarkson was seen enjoying a drink with friends in a pub in west London.

Hammond weighed into the ongoing saga today, tweeting: "To be clear amidst all this talk of us 'quitting' or not: there's nothing for me to 'quit'. Not about to quit my mates anyway."

To be clear amidst all this talk of us 'quitting' or not: there's nothing for me to 'quit'. Not about to quit my mates anyway.

— Richard Hammond (@RichardHammond) April 24, 2015

His tweet came after Mr Wilman, writing in the magazine which is owned by BBC Worldwide, branded the BBC's decision to sack Clarkson a "tragedy".

He said: "[The BBC] hasn't just lost a man who can hold viewers' attention in front of a camera, it's lost a journalist who could use the discipline of print training to focus on what mattered and what didn't, it's lost an editorial genius who could look at an existing structure and then smash it up and reshape it in a blaze of light bulb moments."

He said chiefs at the corporation also originally vetoed hiring May, claiming the three were all "middle-class public-schoolish blokes of a similar age".

The astonishing feature in the BBC-owned magazine came just a day after Mr Wilman and May quit the corporation, with the pair pictured meeting Hammond and Clarkson between their resignations.

Mr Wilman also criticised attempts by the BBC to second-guess decisions about Top Gear's return in 2002 despite not being interested in the show's subject matter.

He said: "The BBC grown-ups were adamant a woman should be in the line-up. Now, I'm a big, big fan of the Beeb, but, my God, do they stretch your patience when they start 'applying their marketing logic', or to use another word, meddling.

"Their theory behind a female presenter was that if you want women to watch something, you need women presenting it.

"The problem was that most of the grown-ups in the BBC management didn't care about the car world, and basically there's this weird logic whereby the less their interest is in the subject, the greater their compulsion becomes to meddle."

Mr Wilman sensationally resigned from the BBC yesterday, following a meeting with the three former presenters at Clarkson's flat in west London.

It means he is now free to reunite with the team on a rival channel, in what would be a nightmare scenario for the corporation.

- Daily Mail