Watch: Formula One driver Gerhard Berger's stolen £350k Ferrari recovered after 28 years

A Ferrari stolen from a Formula One driver in Italy in 1995 has been recovered in London.

The Met Police says it took four days to identify the vehicle which belonged to Gerhard Berger and went missing in Imola, Italy, in 1995.

During the Grand Prix in San Marino that year, two drivers had their Ferraris stolen. One was a red F512M.

In January this year, the Met received a report from Ferrari, which had found a car being purchased by a US buyer, via a UK broker, in 2023 was stolen.

Officers from the Organised Vehicle Crime Unit discovered it had been shipped to Japan shortly after being stolen, before being brought to the UK in late 2023.

Gerhard Berger’s Ferrari was tracked down and seized to prevent it from being exported from the UK.

Police say enquiries remain ongoing and that no arrests have been made. The second car remains missing.

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PC Mike Pilbeam, who led the investigation, said: “The stolen Ferrari – close to the value of £350,000 – was missing for more than 28 years before we managed to track it down in just four days.

“Our enquiries were painstaking and included contacting authorities from around the world. We worked quickly with partners including the National Crime Agency, as well as Ferrari and international car dealerships, and this collaboration was instrumental in understanding the vehicle’s background and stopping it from leaving the country.”

In 2023 the Met’s Organised Vehicle Crime Unit recovered 418 vehicles, with a combined value of £31 million. Of those, police say 326 had been linked to organised criminal gangs, making up £21 million of the total value of vehicles seized.