Famous Italian Rally Driver Assaulted and Robbed at Home

The owner of a house in Livorno, who was assaulted by four robbers in his garden last Friday night and beaten to open his safe, is hospitalized with fractures to his jaw, nasal septum, and rib. The victim is a famous car driver, the former rally driver of the Lancia Martini team, Andrea Aghini, one of the most followed in the 80s and 90s when he competed in the world championship with the official Turin team, also winning a World Rally Championship in Sanremo in 1992, the last time in the WRC of an Italian car driven by an Italian driver. The robbery, reported by Il Tirreno, occurred around 9 p.m. between Collesalvetti (Livorno) and Fauglia (Pisa) while Aghini was moving between family homes, adjacent to each other, passing from his mother's to his through the garden where four men covered with balaclavas surrounded him and immobilized him trying to suffocate him with a rag and hitting him with kicks and punches. 'I reacted instinctively, I struggled - he recalled - but they picked me up and took me into the house. I wasn't scared. I don't know who they were, they didn't say a word'. After hitting him, the robbers opened the safe, robbed what was there - at least two watches - and cut the surveillance camera wires, but then the doorbell rang and they had to leave before completing the looting. 'There is a driving school near the house, they heard my screams and came to help me - Aghini recalled again - The robbers realized they had been discovered and fled. I chased one but I couldn't catch him'. The Carabinieri are investigating the robbery.