Fatal crash with Swiss-owned GTC4 Lusso in Northern Italy 31 March 2024

The crash happened in ITALY, not in Switzerland. NO Swiss armco involved.

Marcel Massini

 

Apparently the party lasted until at least 4 AM... fatigue might have played a role, as could aquaplaning... I take these roads a few times a year and even with an AWD car you can feel some nasty aquaplaning with wide tires...
I feel so sorry for him / the family. What a sad thing to read.

 

Maybe, it's impossible to say. Had he gone across the median strip he may well have taken out oncoming cars and it would have been even worse.

 

Maybe a left front went down, pulled hard left into the barrier and then sheared as it went through. RIP.

 

I believe it is only AWD in the 1st 4 gears.

 

One generalization about modern cars is they are deceptively fast. You can be doing 125 and feel like you're sitting in your easy chair at home. The reality is a small variance can magnify itself quickly. Perhaps the lesson is not to be complacent.

 

Good point.

I remember a really ridiculous scene in Ford vs. Ferrari. Two cars were racing side by side and the drivers are staring across from each other for several seconds. Yea sure, at 200+ mph you can take your eyes off the road for several seconds!

 

Whether it was driver fatigue, error or inattentive behavior (ie phone etc) or car mechanical failure, at that speed the car will be shredded along with the passengers. The low stance of the car allowed it to dive under the armco probably sheering off the windshield and hitting the occupants. Airbags and crush zones cannot mitigate the impact to passengers especially at these speeds. It’s a shame, the loss of life. Makes one lighten that foot a bit on the accelerator.


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Completely agree.

 

I can attest to this, particularly in the case of the Lusso. I routinely used mine on road trips and without the aid of cruse control I’d frequently find myself over double the posted without any effort whatsoever. Very sad to see this crash regardless of how it happened. RIP

 

think you mean 120kph or 5th gear, whichever comes first!

 

Why such hatred towards this car, the PS, and Ferrari for making it. Just don’t buy it and live on. For some of us it’s a marvel. I’ve had 2 x FF and currently on my 2nd GTC4L. Which other Ferrari can you drive 365 days a year, where at times the winter can be quite extreme? I, amongst others, am grateful that F had the foresight to build such wonderful, powerful, yet comfortable machine.
No need to bang on about how you despise the car.
Thanks

 

That particular road is actually fantastic for high speed. However it was monitored the day in 2014 that I got stopped in St.Vincent at 269kph in my F12B….‍

 

Ouch! Very sorry I hope you did not have too much trouble. They are less severe than in France where they confiscate your car and licence.
The one between Mont Blanc tunnel and Genova is even better; very, very little traffic, long straight stretches with zero other vehicles and nowhere for the polizia to hide, no radar traps, or at least very few and GPS indicate them.

On the Monday after the 2016 Monaco Historic GP I was driving towards Como for a week's holiday before the Villa d'Este Concours. I stopped at an Autostrada gas station in the middle of those endless plain -like parts of the US midwest- and a white Aventador on Zurich plates was filling up. He drove off slowly onto the merge ramp until he was on the actual -empty- Autostrada and then we all heard him accelerating all the way to well north of 250kph, it sounded fantastic....it was a sunny dry day.
I would not however go very fast in the rain or a wet surface as was the case in this accident...

 

Police estimate between 200 km/h and 250 km/h on wet asphalt ... Heading from Ivrea towards Milano and then Ticino CH.

Driving above 80 km/h or so on Italian autostradas in wet conditions can often be very dangerous.

Crashed right after a tunnel exit near casello di Santhia'. Have been many times on that autostrada, from Milano to Courmayeur and then on to the Mont Blanc tunnel to France.

Hit the guard rail head on, which cleanly scissored off the rear part. Front part ignited, with both passengers trapped inside.

The man is a 40-yr old DJ from Villeneuve CH, originally from Kosovo. The lady's name is unknown, but the guy's wife and two children are fine back in Serbia.

https://www.fanpage.it/attualita/incidente-santhia-ferrari-viaggiava-a-250-km-h-si-e-spezzata-a-meta-test-dna-per-identificare-i-2-morti/

 

Wink of an eye.

 

This is my last comment. One killer is falling asleep at the wheel. One minute your eyes are open, the next you are in heavy REM sleep. We all have been there. We all have shook it off and kept driving. Big mistake. If you catch yourself falling asleep, pull over immediately. Get out, walk around, do knee bends, the risk is not worth it. I'm good on back country roads and highways, but superslabs get me every time. Don't take the risk. Pull over.

 

I recall once I drove exhausted and sleepy about 65 miles, mostly highway with some back roads, a bridge and a number of exits, turns etc and remember less than 10% of the entire drive. It was harrowing in retrospect, a miracle I’m still here and vowed never again.


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Whatever the time crunch, it is not worth it.

 

They discovered the identity of the second passenger. She is a young Ukrainian model from Odessa.

RIP

 

It seems the Ferrari GT4C Lusso hit a concrete center divider at 250 km/h or so ...

Unlikely that a sleepy driver on Easter Sunday at noon would drive that kind of speed unless the gas pedal got stuck ...

 

From the thread I understand this gentlemen was performing must be in a club as D.J the night.These will go very late night. Sleep deprivation a model next to him and high speed are recepies for disaster.

 

Yes he was returning from Val d'Aosta back to Switzerland via Milano, presumably to resume his job at some later time, or date ...

 

Very sad. The only comment I will make is modern cars (any make) are stupid fast and most people don't realize it, have been saved umpteen number of times with electronics, which in turn gives them false confidence.

I witness it everyday at stoplights where they accelerate like a bat out of hell or a nhra drag race (minivans, econocars, sedans, and esp the suvs)

Like someone else here said, no level of computer or ai can defy the laws of physics.

RIP to the deceased.

 

Properly installed Armco does an amazing job at stopping wrecks relatively safely. Wrongly installed Armco can greatly exaggerate the damage. It can be as simple as using lock washers, or not, depending on the section hit. Some sections are designed to crumble, some are designed to hold. If the road crew didn't follow the engineer's instructions, it can be devastating. But a low slung sports/GT car designed to cut through the wind, and if modified to be even lower for performance or aesthetics, can go under the Armco with results like this. This is one reason we have bumper height restrictions that designers and enthusiasts dislike, but the regulations have a purpose.

At the speed traveled, it might have been a blessing the wreck did not happen any further down the road. At the speed the Lusso was traveling, without the Armco further down the road it easily could have crossed the median and hit an innocent driver headed to Easter Services at the legal speed limit, with more deaths to count.

A tragedy, but also a blessing no one else was hurt.