As a driver on the glamorous, jet-setting Formula One circuit, naturally the Austrian Gerhard Berger drove some serious iron, even away from the track: a red Ferrari 512M Testarossa.
So it was very likely with some dismay that he watched his car unexpectedly drive away with someone else behind the wheel.
The theft took place at the 1995 San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy. Berger jumped in the path of the car, according to reports at the time, but had to leap out of the way as it zoomed off.
He then gamely gave chase in a friend’s Volkswagen Golf, which went about as well as you would have expected it to. The Ferrari was gone.
Good news, however: The car has been recovered. And it took only 28 years.
The car’s whereabouts were unknown until earlier this year, when Ferrari contacted the Metropolitan Police in London about a suspicious vehicle being sold by a British broker.
The police determined the car had been sent to Japan shortly after being stolen and then brought to Britain late last year.
