Alfonso de Portago - Death

Death

He and his co-driver Edmund Nelson were killed on May 12, 1957 in a crash during the course of Mille Miglia about forty miles (68 km) from Brescia, the start-finish point of the event race. The wreck also claimed the lives of ten spectators, among them five children. A tire blew on Portago's third-place Ferrari 355S, causing the car to go into the crowd lining the highway. He was travelling at 150 mph (241 km/h) when the tire went flat. The Ferrari hurtled over a canal on the left side of the road, killing five spectators, then veered back across the canal, and caused the deaths of five more onlookers on the right side of the road. Two of the dead children were hit by a concrete highway milestone that was ripped from the ground by Portago's car and thrown into the crowd. The bodies of Portago and Nelson were badly disfigured beneath the Ferrari, which was upside down. Portago's body was in two sections.

As T.C. Browne wrote, "The inevitable happened when Alfonso de Portago stopped alongside the course, ran to the fence, kissed Linda Christian, ran back to his Ferrari and drove on to his destiny, killing himself, his co-driver, 10 spectators, and the Mille Miglia".

Once Portago commented, "I won't die in an accident. I'll die of old age or be executed in some gross miscarriage of justice". Nelson countered this assertion, saying de Portago would not live to be 30. According to Nelson, "every time Portago comes in from a race the front of his car is wrinkled where he has been nudging people out of the way at 130 mph (210 km/h)".