DECEMBER 14, 2011

Prison term for Lehto after boat tragedy

Former F1 driver JJ Lehto has been sentenced to two years and four months in prison as a result of a boating accident that occurred in his native Finland in June 2010.

Former F1 driver JJ Lehto has been sentenced to two years and four months in prison as a result of a boating accident that occurred in his native Finland in June 2010.

At the time, Lehto was commentating for Finnish TV and had returned home after the Canadian GP.

Four days later Lehto and a visiting friend, married with children, were aboard a 20ft speedboat in the early hours of the morning when the craft collided with a concrete bridge piling on a narrow canal.

Lehto's friend died at the scene, while JJ was thrown from the boat into the canal, unconscious. With a head injury, broken ribs and multiple other fractures, he recovered consciousness on the canal bank, narrowly avoided drowning and managed to summon help at a nearby house.

Lehto was taken to hospital, where Finnish police claimed that his blood alcohol was at an impaired level. Speed is also believed to have been a factor in the tragedy, with estimates gauging impact speed at 40mph plus, well over the canal limit.

Lehto claimed that he was not at the controls of the boat but prosecutors claim that the injuries suffered by his friend were consistent with him having been the passenger. Lehto has appealed the sentence.