Lamborghini Aventador Roadster caught fire during media test day

Lamborghini was left red-faced recently when one of its Aventador LP700-4 Roadsters caught fire during a media presentation at the Phillip Island race track in Victoria.

The incident happened during the last few laps of the test day while Top Gear Australia editor, Tim Keen was behind the wheel. He was swiftly asked to stop the supercar and evacuate the vehicle.

The $795,000 Aventador Roadster was brand new as it was imported from Italy recently for several media drive days as well as test drives for prospective customers. The open-top supercar did a considerable number of laps without drama before smoke and flames started to emerge from behind the cabin during the final hours of the test day.

Understandably, Lamborghini’s Head of South-East Asia and Pacific, Sebastien Henry, requested the media present to refrain from reporting about the incident as he said: “this is not what usually happens.”

According to Fairfax Media, the Italian brand even forced at least one media outlet to destroy images and video footage of the flaming Aventador Roadster.

However, in an official statement, Lamborghini denied it insisted on people deleting the images.

“We certainly did not ‘force’ any of our guests to delete any imagery obtained on the day. We did however, kindly request that our guests refrain from making any assumptions through the media – particularly when, at the time, the cause of the incident had not been adequately investigated,” said Henry.

According to a source that attended the drive day, the cause of the fire was believed to be an oil leak, with Henry saying:

“The issue was accidental due to the vehicle’s extended track use in a high-temperature environment.”

Well, aren’t they meant to be driven on track anyway?

Lamborghini says it has no plans to modify the vehicles as the incident wasn’t due to any fault in design or construction.

Source: Drive