Real Madrid player Karim Benzema has been caught speeding at over 130 miles per hour near Madrid, Spain in an Audi provided to him by the car manufacturer, the popular soccer team’s sponsor. Al Goodman, reporting for CNN, said that the 25-year-old French national made his first appearance in court on the charge on Thursday.
The incident occurred on Feb. 3, when authorities caught the violation with a Civil Guard radar trap. For safety reasons, they couldn’t speed after him, but they were able to grab the license plate number and track the Audi back to Benzema.
The rumors have been flying ever since.
Giles Tremlett, reporting for UK’s The Guardian said there were actually five cars involved in the incident, which involved a high-speed race between various team members’ Audis and Porsches on an outer ring road near Madrid.
According to Tremlett’s unnamed sources, Benzema wasn’t the fastest driver. He was just the one going slow enough to be photographed. A Porsche was allegedly going even faster.
“A police camera clocked the [Porsche] going at 162mph – not far short of the 185mph top speeds of Formula One racing cars — but failed to take a usable picture of the mystery car and no charges” could be brought, said Tremlett’s informant.
An unnamed traffic spokeswoman told CNN’s Goodman that there was only one car involved. Regardless of whether or not Benzema was racing with his Real Madrid soccer teammates or anyone else, because of the high speeds he was traveling, the spokeswoman added that he could face up to six months in jail and lose his license for up to four years.
Benzema just can’t seem to learn. GT Spirit reported that the star striker totalled his yellow Lamborghini Gallardo on Reunion Island (in the Indian Ocean) in Dec. 2009 while “celebrating” his birthday. A rumor was floated then that he was racing with a Porsche, but the Porsche’s driver, if he existed at all, wasn’t named.
Only a month before that crash, in November 2009, he caused serious damage to an Audi by driving it into a tree or a barrier (accounts differ), said a report from Goal by Anthony Wright. Goal went on to say that, “A number of other Real Madrid players, such as Raul and Cristiano Ronaldo, live in the same area.”
It’s up to you to decide if that’s their subtle way of hinting that they think Karim Benzema was racing with some of his Real Madrid teammates.