Billionaire businessman Adrian Portelli has told a court that his GPS malfunctioned and he was driving around a roundabout waiting for it to recalibrate – not doing “circle work”, as police allege.
Portelli, known to many as “Lambo Guy”, performed a “controlled slide” as he entered an intersection in Melbourne’s outer north-west, with the front of the car remaining pointing towards the roundabout while the back wheels lost traction, police say.
Adrian Portelli leaves Sunshine Magistrates Court in his Lamborghini in December 2024.Credit: Joe Armao
The 35-year-old faced Sunshine Magistrates’ Court via video link on Tuesday, more than four years after he allegedly drove his ex-girlfriend’s Mercedes-Benz carelessly in wet weather in Diggers Rest in December 2020.
Portelli is charged with careless driving, failing to keep proper control and driving in a manner causing one or more wheels to lose traction. He is contesting the charges.
The court heard he was struggling with health issues and could not give evidence in person due to the discomfort caused by his symptoms. No further details of the illness were disclosed in court.
However, hours before the hearing on Tuesday, Portelli posted an image on Instagram of an intravenous drip in an arm, along with the words: “Never eating oysters again. Four weeks on and still not right.”
The businessman told the court he wasn’t performing “circle work” – meaning doing loops or burnouts in a vehicle.
He said he also had not turned off the car’s traction control setting, which detects when a tyre loses grip on the road and automatically adjusts to slow the slipping wheel.
“At that point, I was following the GPS navigation. It was a very new area. So the GPS ... started to bug out,” he said.
“I went to go straight, and then it told me to go right. So embarrassingly, I went back around, and then it recalibrated. So, I did 1½ loops of the roundabout. “In those conditions, you’d have to be a moron to take off traction control.”
Portelli with another of his cars.Credit: Kristoffer Paulsen
Portelli said he did not know “where the hell” he was and had decided to pull up into a side street to get directions when he was approached by police. The interaction that followed was captured on the officers’ body-worn cameras.
The footage, played in court last year, shows Leading Senior Constable Glenn Hutton approaching the driver’s window and a smiling Portelli behind the wheel of the Mercedes.
“G’day mate, picked a bad day to do circle work around the roundabout,” Hutton says as Portelli winds down his window.
“Oh mate, tell me about it,” Portelli replies.
Asked by defence barrister Penny Marcou on Tuesday what he made of Hutton’s circle-work comment at the time, Portelli responded he “didn’t think anything of it”.
He told the court that he understood circle work to be doing doughnuts, performing burnouts, creating smoke and leaving tyre marks on the road but had interpreted the remarks to be about his looping around the roundabout.
“If he said that I was drifting or sliding around the roundabout I would have responded differently. But circle work, I just assumed I was just going around the roundabout like looking like an idiot, to be honest,” he said.
The court also heard evidence from forensic engineer Dr Shane Richardson, a specialist in crash reconstruction who conducted an analysis of the Diggers Rest scene.
Richardson disputed the version of events provided by the two officers present at the scene and said they could not have seen the wheels of the Mercedes spinning as they drove into the area.
“They could have been able to see the roof, probably the windows and maybe somebody, but I just don’t think they’re going to be able to see the tyres of the car at that point,” Richardson told the court during a heated cross-examination in which the prosecution accused him of bias.
“ I just think they’ve interpreted the information to help their case, but it doesn’t line up,” he said.
Adrian Portelli poses for a photo in 2023.Credit: Kristoffer Paulsen
Portelli earned the nickname “Lambo Guy” after he pulled up to an auction on the 2022 season of The Block reality TV series in a yellow Lamborghini. The flashy reputation stuck when he later made headlines for hoisting his $3 million McLaren 57 floors into his $39 million penthouse in the Melbourne CBD.
The hearing will continue on Wednesday.
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