A brand new Ferrari 812 GTS has likely been destroyed, or at least suffered severe damage, after rolling into a lake in Italy.
Local media states that the Italian supercar was parked along the Via Achille Grandi roadway in the commune of Sirmione, Brescia in the north of the country. Just how did it end up in the lake, you ask?
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Well, according to Formula Passion, the car was inadvertently left in neutral on a slight decline without the handbrake applied. Doing this in most cars is quite easy, particularly those with traditional handbrakes, rather than electronic ones. However, as The Drive notes, it’s not so simple to leave an 812 in neutral without the emergency brake.
The driver needs to pull both paddle shifters to engage neutral but after letting off the brake, the car will automatically engage the ‘Park Lock’ to prevent it from moving. If a driver wants to leave the car in neutral without the handbrake engaged, they need to activate ‘Carwash mode’ that involves engaging neutral, switching off the vehicle, and turning on accessory mode within three seconds. This mode requires the manual engagement of the parking brake and doesn’t apply it automatically. It’s unclear if the owner of this 812 GTS had the car in its ‘Carwash mode’ at the time or if they accidentally disengaged the handbrake.
Regardless of the cause, images show that the Ferrari slipped into about a foot of water. It’s hard to know the extent of the damage that was caused but Formula Passion reports the car was towed out of the water, which, along with the fact that it was parked in the first place, means the engine may not have been turned on at all and, in all likelihood, shouldn’t be hydrolocked.