Porsche test driver dies on autobahn

[SampaGuy]

RIP...

Porsche are today mourning the loss of one their “most experienced test drivers”. The 51 year old lost his life on the Germany’s A5 autobahn between Frankfurt and Heidelberg. He was travelling in the 998 Cabriolet test mule at high speeds when his car hit the central reservation, the driver of a Panamera prototype travelling behind him managed to escape hitting the car. The accident happened at around 2.25am this morning, Friday 13th February. The car was out as part of an endurance test whereby 3 test drivers were to share a continous run of driving from around 8pm to 6am the following morning.

Link with pics
http://www.gtspirit.com/2009/02/13/c...s-on-autobahn/

[SLOWR/T]

damn that sux. RIP

[EJ25RUN]

Terrible news. RIP to him.

[_Christian_]

Damn. RIP!

[Elbow]

Sad news Anyone know who it was?

[nismo_92]

rip man

[Nittanys1]

crazy, the car doesnt look too bad...

[ATL_EG]

rip, thats shitty as fuck

[allmotoronly]

For the amount of high performance cars (or just cars in general) that drive on the autobahn, you would think the guard rails would not be so high off the ground. A lower guard rail may not have caused the type of damage seen here. He may have just impacted and spun, giving the car's safety features a chance. That's really a shitty situation, and a shitty way to die.

[JKOBD]

Wow. You can see the camo and some other random tape used for testing. RIP for sure. We have seen some pretty good crashes from people falling asleep during long brake testing, etc. That sucks for sure!

[SampaGuy]

For the amount of high performance cars (or just cars in general) that drive on the autobahn, you would think the guard rails would not be so high off the ground. A lower guard rail may not have caused the type of damage seen here. He may have just impacted and spun, giving the car's safety features a chance. That's really a shitty situation, and a shitty way to die.

A lower guard rail would make taller cars flip, and remember that car was a convertible...

[Capt._Ron]

If he was in a GTR he would have survived............too far??? Im kidding its always sad to lose a good driver.

[2turbo4u]

R.I.P

[allmotoronly]

A lower guard rail would make taller cars flip, and remember that car was a convertible...

I mean a guard rail that starts lower to the ground. It could still extend up as high. A 4' tall concrete divider would definitely have prevented an accident like this. Being a convertible had nothing to do with it. At a high rate of speed even a hard top version of this car would have still went under the guard rail like that.

[roxie911]

That's really sad. I think that's probably the only way he would want it though...to go out at top speeds, ya know?? RIP

[Twan0690]

R.I.P to the guy but why is the guard rail so high?

[kte324]

R.I.P.

[integraboi88]

R.I.P. to the Porsche driver.