Michele Alboreto

[Ti Kan]

I didn't see this come up on the list, but perusing the Audi Sport press
web site revealed that the cause of the accident that killed Michele
Alboreto during the Audi R8 testing was tire failure.  Here is the
press text from Audi Sport:


-----------------
Cause of the accident clarified 

The cause of the accident which ended with the tragic death of Michele
Alboreto last Wednesday, has been clarified. Experts from the
independent investigating group DEKRA, investigating on behalf of the
public prosecutor´s office at Cottbus, and specialists of Audi
unanimously came to the opinion that the accident has been caused by a
punctured tyre. 

"All investigations carried out so far, show that a sharp object went
into the left rear tyre which caused a gradual loss of pressure in the
tyre," explain the experts of DEKRA. From that, all investigations
carried out so far prove that the accident was caused by external
circumstances and no technical failure of the car. 

"Knowing the results of the investigations, which of course does not
bring Michele back, Audi has decided in accordance with its drivers, to
take part in the pre-practice at Le Mans,"  explains Dr Wolfgang
Ullrich, Head of Audi Sport. "I am absolutely sure this would also be in
the mind of Michele, whose work helped us make the Audi R8 such a
successful sportscar." 

Also the two customer teams Champion and Johansson will take part in
next weekend's Le Mans pre-practice with their Audi R8 sportscars. 

2001/04/30
-----------------


-Ti
01 S4 2.7 biturbo quattro
84 5000S 2.1 turbo
80 4000 2.0
-- 
    ///  Ti Kan                Vorsprung durch Technik
   ///   AMB Research Laboratories, Sunnyvale, CA. USA
  ///    ti at amb.org
 //////  http://www.amb.org/ti/
///