TWO young men were sentenced to months in jail Thursday by a Beijing court for dangerous driving when racing in a Beijing tunnel last month, causing a crash involving their supercars and injuring a female passenger.

    The supercar crash caused a stir online and made headlines in Chinese media across the country. It happened to take place only a couple of hours before “Furious 7,” the latest installment of the street-racing “Fast and Furious” movie franchise, had its midnight premiere on the Chinese mainland, with one Weibo user teasing online then: “A warm-up activity for the new movie, perhaps?”

    Tang Wentian, 21, driving a Lamborghini and Yu Muchun, at the wheel of a Ferrari, were traveling at speeds of more than 160 kilometers per hour in the Datun Tunnel in Beijing’s Chaoyang District around 9 p.m. April 11, according to police.

    Datun Tunnel has three lanes in each direction with a speed limit of 60 kilometers per hour.

    The cars chased after each other and finally crashed around 10 p.m., police said. Both cars collided with the tunnel wall and sustained serious damage.

    A 24-year-old woman in the passenger seat of the Lamborghini suffered a burst fracture of her lumbar spine, police said. The injury will prevent her from any intense exercise for rest of her life and she will not be able to get pregnant in the next two years, reported Phoenix News. She has filed a civil lawsuit against the drivers seeking compensation, according to Phoenix News.

    The court ruled that Tang, the Lamborghini driver, should be jailed for five months while Yu, the Ferrari driver, should be jailed for four months. They each were also fined 10,000 yuan (US$1,614) and 8,000 yuan. (SD-Agencies)