Alboreto killed testing for Le Mans.

Former F1 driver Michele Alboreto was killed today in an Audi R8 on the Lausitzring circuit near Dresden in Germany while preparing for the Le Mans 24 Hours.

The Italian was performing high speed aerodynamic tests in an Audi R8 for the factory team when the fatal accident occured. He was not driving on the Eurospeedway?s main racing oval but on a separate testing oval right next to the race track which is 11.3 km long and designed especially for testing purposes. It contains two steeply banked turns - so steep that one can drive through them without any g-forces (and thus theoretically without having to put a hand on the steering wheel) at 120 kph speed. Audi had booked it to try their new aerodynamic package they had developed for this year?s Le Mans 24 hrs, the major improvement on last year?s Le Mans and ALMS winning R8 car.

The accident happened late in the afternoon on one of the long straights that connect the two banked turns, each one of them being almost five kilometres long. Alboreto was heading southbound towards the south parabolic turn when he lost control about 300 metres before the corner, still well on the main straight and with no obious reason. The Audi careered towards the outside armco, to the right from the driver?s point of view, and was sent summersaulting on the grass outside the track. It was very badly destroyed. Because the accident is still under investigation by the police, no further details have been revealed yet. Reserach at the scene of the fatal crash continued long into Wednesday night.

Milan born Alboreto raced in F1 from 1981 to 1994. During that time the Italian competed for Tyrrell, Ferrari, Larrousse, Arrows, Footwork, Lola and Minardi. After leaving F1 Alboreto went on to win the Le Mans 24 Hours with Porsche in 1997 and last year finished third with the Audi team.

Alboreto made 194 F1 starts and won five races as well as achieving two pole positions and five fastest laps. His first win came in 1983 with Tyrrell when he won the US Grand Prix (Detroit). He later went on to spend five years with Ferrari scoring a further four wins. His best season came in 1985 when he finished second in the drivers' championship with 53 points (That year Alain Prost won his first world championship with 76 points).

Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo has paid tribute to the Italian. He said: "Michele Alboreto played an important role as a driver in the history of Ferrari. He was intelligent and paid a great deal of attention to the technical problems involved in the development of the car. His death has been a hard blow to take and has filled me with a deep sadness. Michele continued to race, driven on by an irrepressible passion, proving that in our sport which is totally involving, risk is always around the corner."

We would like to send our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Michele Alboreto and to say that presently our thoughts are with them at what is undoubtedly a extremely sad and upsetting time.