The man who was Daniel Bruhl's stunt double in the film Rush has been killed in a car accident in Italy.

Mauro Pane, 50, disappeared last Sunday and was found after four days of police searching. Pane was discovered in his Renault Megane in a canal running between the towns of Pavie and Piacenza. An unidentified woman was found alongside Pane in the car.

Pane became a professional test driver before starting a company specialising in restoring and maintaining old F1 cars, which Rush director Ron Howard used to recreate the era of racing shown in the film. It becomes the second accident to take a life of a person related to the film's production after racing driver Sean Edwards, who played his father Guy in the film, was killed in a crash during a test in October.

A police spokesman said: "The car was spotted in the canal and when pulled from the water two bodies were found inside. One is that of Mauro Pane and the second is that of a woman who has not yet been formally identified.

"It looks like the car came off the road and went into the canal but the full cause is still being investigated and it is too early to say for sure. We will have to carry out toxicology tests on the two victims as well to see if there were any contributing factors.''

Pane won the Historic Formula 1 Championship in 2008 and last year he spoke to an Italian racing magazine about his role in the film, saying: "In portraying Lauda, I tried to try and recreate as accurately as possible his driving style. It was hard work and the scenes of the Nurburgring crash were very difficult."

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