Michael Fassbender Crashes Porsche Into Wall at Le Mans Race

By Russ Burlingame

Actor Michael Fassbender, driving for German's Proton Competition team, crashed his Porsche 911 into a wall at a Le Mans race, totaling the car and ending Proton's chances at LeMans this year. This was the second year that Fassbender has participated in the 24-hour race, and while he did get out of the accident unscathed, the vehicle itself did not, and was rendered impossible to fix before the end of the race and had to be "retired." The star's accident was caught on film and shared on social media within moments. Fassbender was meant to take the first of three "shifts" in the vehicle, according to a lineup card shared on social media.

The Proton Competition was understandably disappointed, but didn't blame the actor, who some fans said has improved as a driver since last year. They shared their response on social media fairly soon after the decision was made.

"We are gutted! Car #911 is no longer running the Le Mans 24 race," the Proton Competition tweeted. "Fassbender lost control of the car and went into the barrier with no chances to repair the damage… Le Mans was [not] kind to us this year!"

You can get a glimpse at the clip below.

Fassbender next appears in Next Goal Wins, a soccer movie directed by Thor: Ragnarok filmmaker Taika Waititi.

"It's the ultimate underdog story," Waititi previously told Empire Magazine. And telling it in a new form had personal resonance for the filmmaker. "It taking place in Polynesia is very important to me, because it's my people. We stick together. It was like seeing myself up there, seeing my family up there, when I saw that documentary, which is so perfect in many ways. And to have a broader audiences have access to that story was one of my main goals. To bring our backyard to people, and to put brown faces on screen was a big deal for me. I just loved it."  

Next Goal Wins will star Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett, Elisabeth Moss, David Fane, Beulah Koale, Oscar Kightley, Lehi Falepapalangi, and more. The movie will be produced by Andy Serkis, Jonathan Cavendish, Garrett Basch, Mike Brett, Steve Jamison, and Waititi, who wrote the project with Iain Morris. Imaginarium Productions, a digital performance-capture studio founded by Serkis and Cavendish in 2011, optioned the rights to Next Goal Wins. The original documentary was directed by Mike Brett and Steve Jamison back in 2014.

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