As reported today by Spanish daily Marca, a second witness has come forward to challenge the Spanish police’s claims that Liverpool star Diogo Jota was speeding at the time of his fatal Lamborghini crash.
Traffic police in Zamora, near the northwest border of Spain and Portugal, stated on Tuesday that everything pointed to the father of three driving, likely well above the 120 km/h (74 mph) speed limit, after revealing they believed the bright green £180,000 Lamborghini Huracan had suffered a tire blowout.
Yesterday, a Portuguese truck driver who claims to have filmed Jota’s car in flames on the A-52 motorway in Cernadilla near Zamora insisted that the vehicle passed him “super calmly” and “without speeding.”
José Azevedo also said in a selfie video that he grabbed a fire extinguisher and tried to help, but there was “nothing” he could do to save the Liverpool winger and his footballer brother André Silva, who also died in the crash last Thursday.
A truck driver locally known as José Aleixo Duarte told the Portuguese tabloid Correio da Manhã that Jota’s car overtook him five minutes before the accident and was going at a “moderate speed.” He also criticized the condition of the road where the fatal crash occurred, saying it was in a “bad state.”
Mr. Azevedo was the first person to publicly come forward yesterday as a witness and identify himself as the author of the viral footage showing Jota’s car in flames last week.
In a four-minute daytime selfie video filmed from his truck cab, he explained his decision to speak out:
“There’s a video on the internet, on TV, showing Diogo’s car on fire at night.
Supposedly, it was a truck driver who filmed it and didn’t provide first aid. Well, that truck driver was me. I filmed it and I have proof.”
During the video, he turned his phone towards the name on his truck’s tachograph, which matched the name on the tachograph in the night footage of Jota’s burning supercar.
Both videos also show a slightly cracked windshield, which Mr. Azevedo cited as further proof he is telling the truth about witnessing the crash. He said:
“I stopped, grabbed the fire extinguisher, and tried to help.
Because of the impact of the accident—forget it!—there was nothing I could do. Nothing, absolutely nothing! I offer my condolences to the family, my sincere sympathies. My conscience is clear, I know what I saw. They passed me super calmly, without speeding, without speeding.”
Not mentioning going to the police after witnessing the crash, Mr. Azevedo said:
“I didn’t even know who was in the Lamborghini that day. I only found out the next day because when I arrived at my destination, I shared the video with my wife, and in the morning I learned that it was the brothers in the car.
You have my word that they weren’t speeding. They were going super calmly. I drive this road every day, Monday to Saturday, and I know what it’s like: it’s not worth a damn. It’s a dark road and I could clearly see the make and color of the car, everything.
I filmed it, stopped, tried to help, but unfortunately there was nothing I could do. My conscience is clear.”
He admitted he “thought twice” before going public but said he was prompted to do so by “internet haters” who claimed he did nothing to help Diogo or his brother and only posted footage of their burning Lamborghini for “likes.”
He spoke out just hours after the Spanish newspaper El Mundo claimed that Spanish police were still trying to identify or locate crash witnesses, including the person behind the viral video of Diogo’s Lamborghini in flames.
In their second official statement since last week’s horrific crash, the Civil Guard said on Tuesday:
“The expert report is still being worked on and finalized. Among other things, traffic police from the Zamora branch of the Civil Guard are studying the tread marks left by one of the vehicle’s wheels.”
“Everything also points to a possible high excess of speed over the permitted speed on that stretch of the motorway.
All tests carried out so far point to the driver of the crash vehicle being Diogo Jota. When finalized, the expert police report will be handed over to a court in Puebla de Sanabria.”
The force said on the day of the crash at 12:30 a.m.:
“Everything points to a tire blowout as the car was overtaking. As a result of the accident, the car caught fire and both occupants died.”
Spanish road safety expert Javier Lopez Delgado pointed to “multiple factors,” including driving speed, saying:
“If they had been going at 55 mph, they probably wouldn’t have been killed. It seems very clear they were going very fast because of the skid marks.”
Mr. Lopez Delgado, president of the Spanish Association of Road Safety Auditors (ASEVI), also said he believed the road surface contributed to the men’s deaths, insisting:
“You can clearly see it had many faults.”
In comments to the local paper La Opinión de Zamora earlier this week, the expert engineer said a tire blowout linked to the tire not being in the “right conditions or having the correct pressure” wouldn’t be the only factor in the crash.
He told La Opinión de Zamora the central reservation barrier the siblings crashed into acted as an “obstacle” because “the length and angle of incidence were not correct.”
Referencing another accident at the same spot eight days earlier, in which a 60-year-old woman was severely injured and had to be cut free from the wreckage by firefighters, Mr. Lopez Delgado said:
“It could be a coincidence, but I’m not a big believer in coincidences. When two different cars come off the road at the same kilometer point, something’s up.”
Diogo Jota was heading to the northern Spanish port city of Santander with his brother to catch a ferry to the UK and continue by car to Liverpool, after being advised not to travel by plane following lung surgery.
✍️ Spanish Marca