'Mr Bean' crashes F1 supercar - AsiaOne

ROWAN Atkinson, otherwise known as Mr Bean, is thanking his lucky stars. He walked out of a crash involving a supercar on Thursday with just a minor shoulder injury.

The British actor was driving a high-powered McLaren F1 supercar, which has a top speed of 370kmh. But he said he drove it at an "embarrassingly low-speed".

He is believed to have lost control of the car which spun several times on the wet road before smashing into a tree and then a lamp post. It came to a rest at the side of the carriageway before the engine caught fire.

The £650,000 (S$1.29 million) vehicle was badly damaged. The 56-year-old actor managed to get out of the driver's seat before the fire in the engine, which is at the back of the car, The Mirror reported.

A photo of the crash was posted on Twitter, The Sun reported. The report said that another motorist looked after Atkinson, who was visibly shaken, until emergency services arrived at the crash site.

The accident happened near Haddon, Cambridgeshire, about 120km north of London, shortly after 7.30pm on Thursday.

One onlooker said: "Rowan is lucky to be alive, considering the state of the car."

Firefighters put the blaze out and Atkinson was taken to Peterborough City Hospital, where his publicist said he was treated for shoulder pain.

A spokesman for the East of England Ambulance Service confirmed: "We attended the scene of a single vehicle accident earlier this evening and took a man with minor injuries to hospital."

Embarrassed

The Mr Bean actor later spoke of his embarrassment, admitting: "The prang (slang for crash) was embarrassingly low-speed and therefore not related to my handling of the car, thank God.

"I was very, very lucky."

Atkinson, who is also known for his writing and acting in the BBC comedy series The Blackadder, owns a collection of cars and has written articles for specialist car magazines.

It is not the first time that Atkinson has crashed the supercar he bought to celebrate the success of his Mr Bean movie. The front of the McLaren was wrecked in a previous collision with the rear of a Rover Metro in Lancashire, in October 1999.

In 2001, his Aston Martin V8 Zagato collided with a barrier at a car enthusiasts' meeting in Yorkshire.

And in 2009, a romantic night out went up in smoke when his 1952 Jaguar racing car burst into flames.

Off screen, the famously publicity-shy actor has pursued a passion for motorsports, The Telegraph reported.

After resisting repeated offers to appear on the BBC's top-rated Top Gear, he made his debut last month on the British petrolheads' favourite TV show.

In a clip of the show uploaded on to YouTube by the BBC last month, he said people would "assume that in the reasonably priced car I will be very good when there's absolutely no guarantee of that whatsoever".

He then topped the leader's board on Top Gear's Star in a Reasonably Priced Car segment. He notched up the fastest ever time on the show, completing the circuit in 1 minute 42.2 seconds.

This article was first published in The New Paper.