Two players on Germany’s World Cup roster were part of a car crash on Tuesday in Northern Italy.
Schalke teammates Benedikt Hoewedes and Julian Draxler were both passengers in cars driven by Formula One star Nico Rosberg, just hours after his win at the Monaco Grand Prix, and fellow driver Pascal Wehrlein.
Quite why they were allowed to ride in powerful racing cars in the lead up to a World Cup is beyond me…
Both players walked away unharmed but two people were taken to hospital, one with serious injuries, after being hit by the car that Wehrlein was driving. The crash occurred during a sponsorship event with German car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz.
The DPA news agency reports that both drivers were doing laps of a circuit in the mountains near the German national team’s training base in South Tyrol when the incident happened.
German soccer federation spokesman Jens Grittner said: “A driving exercise of our partner Mercedes-Benz ended in a serious accident. To our great regret, two people were injured. They were treated immediately and brought to hospital.”
After the accident German head coach Joachim Löw cancelled a training game against the German U-20 side and Hoewedes and Draxler both trained with the team privately instead. Germany face the U.S. national team at the World Cup this summer in Group G. They have off in Recife on June 26.
This is what F1 star Rosberg had to say about the accident via Tiwtter.
