The accident occurred on the A-52 motorway near Cernadilla, close to the Portuguese border, when the car is believed to have suffered a tire blowout while overtaking another vehicle. ..Continue Reading
According to reports from Portugal, the brothers were on a road trip to Santander, where they planned to catch a ferry to the UK. Jota had been advised against flying due to a recent lung procedure.
Spanish authorities are currently investigating the cause of the crash, which happened in the early hours of Thursday morning. Just two weeks earlier, Jota had married his longtime partner Rute Cardoso in a ceremony surrounded by loved ones in Porto.
Debris at the crash site confirmed that the vehicle involved was a Lamborghini Huracán Evo Spyder.
This high-performance car, valued at around £180,000 before any customizations, can exceed speeds of 200 mph and accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in just over three seconds.
It remains unclear who was behind the wheel at the time, but investigators are focusing on the possibility that the tire failure during an overtaking maneuver caused the vehicle to lose control and ignite.
The brothers were heading east along a remote stretch of highway, roughly an hour from the city of Zamora, when the tragedy occurred.
Spanish official Ángel Blanco confirmed that both men died at the scene.
Jota was returning to England for Liverpool’s pre-season training, which begins Monday, less than two weeks after his wedding on June 22.
Doctors had reportedly advised him to avoid air travel following surgery, prompting him to take a ferry from Santander to Plymouth—a journey that would have allowed him to continue by car once in the UK.
CNN Portugal’s sports editor Rui Loura said today live on air: ‘The surgery he had was lung surgery and he had been advised against flying following this.
‘He was on his way to the northern Spanish port city of Santander to cross by ferry and reach the UK that way and carry on with the car once he reached Britain. He was on his way to Liverpool with his brother.’
Another Portuguese journalist, Victor Pinto told the country’s CMTV channel: ‘Diogo sometimes chose to travel by road because he had some pulmonary discomfort, nothing serious, and as we know, there is a ferry boat that connects the south of England to Spain’.
Jota died at the age of 28 after his Lamborghini careered off a road in Spain, devastating his family and the world of football. His brother Andre, his only sibling, was 26.
The supercar went off the road, rolled and then burst into flames at around 12.35am, also igniting the surrounding vegetation. The emergency services were called but the brothers could not be saved. And Police say they don’t yet know who was driving.
