diff --git a/agent/experiments/exp14_finetune_v5.py b/agent/experiments/exp14_finetune_v5.py
index 9a4bdce..655071a 100644
--- a/agent/experiments/exp14_finetune_v5.py
+++ b/agent/experiments/exp14_finetune_v5.py
@@ -180,6 +180,12 @@ if os.path.exists(WARM_PATH):
     first_throttle_floor = phase_defs[0][1]
     env0 = VecTransposeImage(DummyVecEnv([make_env_base(0.2, throttle_floor=first_throttle_floor)]))
     model.set_env(env0)
+    # Close the loaded_env used only for model loading to avoid leaving a stale
+    # TCP connection (which would create an extra vehicle in the simulator).
+    try:
+        loaded_env.close()
+    except Exception:
+        pass
 else:
     log('No warm-start found — creating fresh model with base throttle_min=0.2')
     env0 = VecTransposeImage(DummyVecEnv([make_env_base(0.2, throttle_floor=phase_defs[0][1])]))