HOT AND BOTHERED

Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May tackle the Sahara in clapped-out sports cars for their latest adventure

Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May are back with another epic adventure as they head to Mauritania for the latest episode of The Grand Tour.

The intrepid trio follow in the wheel tracks of the original ParisDakar rally, which will see them begin in Mauritania, traversing minefields, ravines and rivers as they motor across the Sahara in cheap modified sports cars.

Not only is the West African nation subject to terrorist attacks, it's also intensely hot and strictly Muslim, which means there were no cool beers for our three amigos.

"At the end of a long working day in the desert, a beer is quite welcome," says Richard, 54. "It was almost needed on a cellular level!" One of the first scenes in the show sees them extricate their cars from the iron ore train, a 2.5km monster that travels this country's only railway line.

Watching the enormous train thunder across the desert made Richard feel "strangely human". He says, "You do get a sense of scale. Big desert landscapes like that aren't set up in the way that our normal world is as a human being.