Police in the Czech Republic have finally arrested the driver of a Formula 1-type racing car which had been spotted on the motorway on numerous occasions since 2019.<\/p>\n
The red racing car, decked out in full Ferrari livery, was followed to a property in the village of Buk, some 60km (37 miles) south-west of Prague, after the latest sighting was reported to police. <\/p>\n
Video emerged on Sunday morning showing the distinctive car driving along the D4 motorway and stopping for petrol.<\/p>\n
The driver – a 51-year-old man – was arrested at his home and taken into custody after briefly refusing to get out of the vehicle.<\/p>\n
Video footage captured by local media showed him sitting in the car in front of his garage, arguing with officers and saying they were trespassing on private property.<\/p>\n
Eventually he relented and agreed to be taken to a police station for questioning – still wearing his red racing driver’s outfit and helmet.<\/p>\n
According to subsequent media reports he refused to answer any questions when he got there.<\/p>\n
A man identified as his son told local media that the house had been surrounded by several dozen police cars and a helicopter, in what he said was a disproportionate response “to a supposed traffic violation of ours.”<\/p>\n
He said police “allegedly saw us towing a Formula 1 car which they claimed had been speeding along the motorway a few minutes earlier – of course we know absolutely nothing about this.”<\/p>\n
Police first managed to speak with the phantom F1 driver in 2019, when images and video of the car on the motorway first started to appear online.<\/p>\n
They tracked down the vehicle and questioned its owner, who denied ever driving it on the motorway. It is unclear if that is the same person police have now arrested.<\/p>\n
Because the driver wore a helmet in the videos and photos, they could not be identified and police were unable to take the matter any further.<\/p>\n
The vehicle has frequently been described as “a Ferrari Formula 1 car”.<\/p>\n
However, according to the website auto.cz it is in fact a Dallara GP2\/08 – a racing car developed by the Italian manufacturer Dallara for use in the GP2 Series, a feeder series for Formula One. <\/p>\n
The contest has since been rebranded as the FIA Formula 2 Championship.<\/p>\n
Regardless of its exact provenance the owner now faces a fine for driving a vehicle on the motorway without headlights, indicators or number plates, and could have his driving licence suspended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police in the Czech Republic have finally arrested the driver of a Formula 1-type racing car which had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-127361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}