Oh, geez! What horrifying thoughts now! Oh, you bet, I could see Hammond moving forward with "the new Top Gear," whether May goes along or not. Indeed, think about all of the "filler" shows that Hammond has done alone (Top 41 segments) or with May (the absolutely DREADFUL "Apocalypse" show) and so on -- I looked into the production companies listed in the credits for some of those, and at least a lot of it was done by "Hammond's production company."
I'm sorry, but I really like Jeremy, and I like James quite a bit more, but I just mainly "tolerate" Hammond. I dearly love every single thing that James and Jeremy have done on their own, but what I've seen of Hammond's non-Top Gear stuff has been, well, just barely this side of awful. "Richard Hammond's Crash Course" comes to mind -- I thought that was basically miserable.
So, can you see a "new Top Gear" with Richard as the big cheese, "running the show" rather like Jeremy has been doing? I could easily handle May and Hammond moving forward with a third presenter, but with Hammond alone with two new presenters doesn't appeal to me at all. "The horrors."
Now I'll probably have nightmares all night for the next couple of weeks. Gaaah.