One Clocked Bugatti, One Mangled Porsche & A Very Lucky Ferrari
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One Clocked Bugatti, One Mangled Porsche & A Very Lucky Ferrari

Oliver White
5th June, 2008
11 comments
3 min read

Whilst not strictly Formula One related, two stories that have made it to the press this week have made me smile and are worth mentioning if only for my own amusement. Each story includes an expensive road-going car and the police, and both incidents occurred in the UK and likely embarrassed the drivers of each. The first story shows why some people really shouldn’t own fast cars, the second story showing why some people shouldn’t be allowed to drive them.

M27 Madness

On Tuesday, British tabloid The Sun reported that a Bugatti Veyron had been stopped on the M27 motorway in Hampshire (just up the road from myself) for traveling at 97mph. According to an eyewitness who was driving down the same stretch of motorway, the supercar was racing a Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano and both cars reached excessive speeds of around 130mph before the police caught up to them. Both cars were said to be weaving across all three lanes of the carriageway, and the drivers even ignored the temporary 50mph limit on one part of the road.

The patrol car pulled over the Veyron driver while the 599 simply drove away. The eyewitness, presumably a passenger, took a couple of photos of the two cars and noted that the Veyron had French number plates and the Ferrari didn’t have any on the rear. It is therefore unlikely it had any on the front as well.

The Veyron driver was given three points on his license and received a fixed fine of £60. However, the next day Motor Sport Magazine were at the Goodwood Supercar Breakfast Club where a Veyron, sporting the same registration plate was photographed. Which begs the question, why couldn’t the owners wait until they got to Goodwood before racing their machines?

  • The Sun Article – Including two photos of the cars on the motorway.
  • Motor Sport Magazine Article – Check out the bottom photo which shows the first part of the registration plate of the Veyron in The Sun article.

Carrera Crash

The second non-F1 story today comes from Anthony Hamilton, father to championship contender Lewis. Anthony had been returning to his home in Hertfordshire in a borrowed Porsche Carrera GT and managed to lose control of the German machine. Anthony ploughed the car into a hedge just metres from a children’s playground and inspected the damage to the rear of the vehicle.

It hasn’t been reported yet at what speed Hamilton Sr was traveling at along the 30mph limited road, but going by a photo published in the Telegraph, it was unlikely the Briton was going all that fast; a damaged rear light and some cracks in the bodywork was all he managed to do. However, as the Porsche isn’t his, Anthony will have some serious explaining to do to the owner.

This is my first crash in almost 30 years and it had to happen in someone else’s car. Thankfully the only thing hurt was the car, and a bush fence – for which I am extremely sorry. Anthony Hamilton.

Maybe these three drivers should leave fast cars and racing to the Formula One stars, eh? Although having said that, Lewis Hamilton was stopped for speeding in France last year, the McLaren driver being clocked in his Mercedes at 122mph.

11 comments

  • looking at the photo, i’d say anthony was doing far more than 30mph.

    the car’s pointing into a field… where’s the road? if he went in backwards (as the damaged light would suggest), how’d he manage a 180 using only the inertia of a 30mph accident?

  • The details of the accident are vague, but it is quite easy to drive a car into a hedge (and when I say easy, I mean easy for someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing). The damage to the back is a bit odd though. Having said that, my girlfriend was slowly reversing out of a bay late last year and a branch from a hedge got caught on the front bumper and ripped it right off, damaging the mounting bracket things and putting a small split in it. She was doing no more than 10mph. As no speed has been mentioned yet (that I can find) I’m a little hesitant to accuse Anthony Hamilton of speeding.

  • Actually, I take that back. From the article:

    Anthony Hamilton was just 200 metres from his home in Tewin, Hertfordshire, when he lost control of the £330,000 vehicle and ploughed across a grass verge, leaving deep tire tracks, before crashing through a hedge.

    Emphasis mine to highlight my possible error in previous comment.

    @Telegraph: For the love of all the dictionaries in the all the lands, when in England, “tire” means to feel tired/drowsy/sleepy. The round black things found on each corner of a Porsche Carrera are called tyres.

  • It makes me sick that high-end luxury car driver with no sense of responsibility putting their and other’s people life at risk. I’ve seen it over here with fatal consequences.

  • the supercar was racing a Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano and both cars reached excessive speeds of around 130mph

    I guess the Veyron was toying with the Ferrari since it could have quite easily left it for dust.

  • “Anthony Hamilton was just 200 metres from his home in Tewin”

    a couple of things i’ve read suggested he’d just left his home when this happened… and at speed too.

    pretty hard to lose control of a car that close to ones house i’d say. of all the roads i drive, the one outside my window is the one i know most intimately.

  • I’d also not be stupid enough to speed outside my own house, in front my own neighbours who could easily identify me. Although I’m sure Hamilton Sr and Jr are easily identifiable these days. And the Carrera GT is a bit of a giveaway as well, if not a slap in the face to Mercedes.

    I read somewhere that Lewis Hamilton was loaned a Porsche of some description (sorry, their model numbering system is beyond my logic) to drive after the Monaco Grand Prix. I know that Porsche had a relationship with McLaren, but I’m not so sure Mercedes would be entirely happy with all the media attention the Hamilton’s are getting with their road cars at the moment.

    Edit: Just had a thought: Maybe McLaren don’t trust either Hamilton with an SLR just yet?

  • Thank you Craig. I’ve missed you around here, but you’ve made up for it with that photo; it puts a clearer light on everything. 🙂

    So, judging by the tyre marks in the grass, he was heading away from the photographers position (towards the house) and managed to spin through 180, as shown with the far right tyre tracks. The rear of the car must have hit the hedge as it spun and that is where the damage to back of the Porsche happened. Given that there is no kerb on the road, it would have been relatively easily for the car to skid off, but he would had to have been going at least 40-60mph for this to have happened. And even then…? Although I would suggest that the majority of the spin happened on the muddy verge rather than on the tarmac. Stupid by all accounts.

  • In one of my earlier career incarnations, I was in Investigations for the Insurance company I work for, and spent many any hour poring over photo’s such as these. Aha, now my secret past comes to light !

    I’d like a bigger area shot, and more of them to be sure, but to me it certainly looks like the car

    has gone in backwards as evidenced by the direction the dirt has flicked onto the car. It has also rotated from where it came to rest, as the yaw marks indicate. *note, now that I have looked at the link that Craig supplied, I see that I was correct 😉 *

    To the untrained eye it doesn’t look like a lot of damage, but I’d be surprised if he hasn’t managed to misalign the rear of the car. Have to look underneath to be sure, but to me thats not looking like just a broken tailight and cracked bumper.

    And you do not – I repeat, do not – do that kind of damage at 60 kph. Hey – who even drives that sort of car at those speeds ! Clearly he has been taking that slight bend in the road way too fast, and has lost the back end.

    As regards to the Veyron driver, what a laugh. I would’ve thought that the fine would have been a bit dearer though? Not like the guy couldn’t have afforded it.

    You make a very good point Ollie – why didn’t he just wait to Goodwood to put the car through it’s paces? Just goes to show that dollars can’t buy you sense.

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