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Top Gear won the battle of the ratings on Sunday, with more watching dramatic footage of Richard Hammond's car crash than the Celebrity Big Brother final.
At its peak, the BBC Two motoring show was seen by 8.6 million - 1.3 million more than the 7.3 million who watched Shilpa Shetty win the Channel 4 show.

Top Gear's average audience was 7.9 million, compared to the 4.8 million who saw its rival's first hour.

That figure rose to 6.5 million as the Channel 4 show reached its conclusion.

The average audience for the last series of Top Gear peaked at 5.3 million in August 2006.
Celebrity Big Brother was also bested by BBC One drama Waking the Dead, which reached an average audience of 6.7 million.

ITV1's crime drama Trial and Retribution fared less well, peaking at 5.1 million.

Top Gear viewers saw Hammond introduce shocking footage of the 280mph accident in a jet-powered car that left him fighting for life last September.

The 37-year-old declared himself "completely fixed and normal" and implored co-presenters Jeremy Clarkson and James May to make no further mention of the crash.
A spokeswoman for the programme said it was "great to have Top Gear back and in such good form".

Writing on his blog after Sunday's programme, Hammond defended the decision to show the crash footage.

"We can't pretend it didn't happen - that we can hoon about all over Europe in supercars and punt jet-propelled dragsters up runways at 300mph without things going wrong," he writes.

"That's how it is in the world; things go wrong. And if I've learned one thing, it's that they can go wrong at the worst possible moment."

From the BBC website

IMO Top Gear beat big brother because people actualy are interested in Top Gear and to see the crash that so nearly took Hamster's life. Also I think on the whole Top Gear is by far the better show!

Keep up the good work Top Gear is the best Car programme in TV.