Georgi Donczew’s Lamborghini Huracan goes up in flames after hitting an Armco barrier at Misano.
Competing in the latest GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AWS round at Misano, Donczew was tipped into a spin by BMW driver Darren Leung.
The Paradine Competition car made nose-to-tail contact at the high-speed Turn 11 kink, which sent the Grasser Racing Team driver into the Armco barrier.
The Lamborghini Huracan erupted on impact before spinning across the circuit towards the gravel trap.
The trailing pack of cars took evasive action, but not all could avoid the mess. Lionspeed GP driver Gabriel Rindone clipped the stationary car with his Porsche 911.
The race was subsequently red-flagged with 44 minutes left on the clock.
Leung was apologetic for the accident.
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“It’s not been the easiest of days, for sure,” said Leung.
“I was glad, as soon as I went down, I saw Georgi in the garage and he was uninjured.
“We just kind of exchanged a few words about how scary that moment was. I just think it’s one of those things.
“I didn’t expect him to come from a blind spot and come across the front of me. It’s such a high speed corner. That does stuff to the aero in these cars. It does quite a lot.
“I did lift, I lifted as much as I could without losing the car myself and he obviously had a bigger lift.
“It looks like I’m trying to go for a move there but really I’m trying to give him the space after he came across the front. There wasn’t really anything else I could have done.
“The most important thing is that he’s okay. I think he knows and hopefully the Grasser team knows who I am and how I manage things.
“If you look at the lap before, I gave him plenty of space in the high speed section.
“Unfortunately, for me, that was the situation that resulted in the tiniest of touches between us which had the biggest consequence. Again, I’m glad he’s okay.”
After a lengthy delay, the race resumed. Garage 59 drivers Marvin Kirchhofer and Benjamin Goethe were victorious in their McLaren 720S.
It marked the first win for Garage 59 in 2016 in the then-known Blancpain GT Series with Rob Bell and Alvaro Parente at the Nurburgring.
Lucas Auer and former Supercars driver Maro Engel were second for Winward Racing in their Mercedes-AMG. Patrick Niederhauser and Sven Muller were third for Porsche team Rutronik Racing.
The weekend’s earlier race was won by Valentino Rossi and Raffaele Marciello for Team WRT in their BMW M6.
Alessio Rovera and Vincent Abril were second for AF Corse while Team WRT bookended the podium with Charles Weerts and Kelvin van der Linde.