The lost diamonds of Monaco. A fraud or just an expensive accident?

Formula 1 is a precise sport. Timings are counted right down until 1000ths of a second. A pit crew can change all 4 tyres of a car in about 3 seconds. And drivers are always driving right on the edge of the track limits. 

But sometimes, things don’t go to plan. Maybe it’s just pure bad luck, or maybe it’s just stupidity, or perhaps it’s a stroke of brilliant planning? 

I’m going to tell you a short Story, and then you tell me what you think it is. 

Jaguar In Formula 1

In the 2000s ford owned Jaguar. And they decided that a great way to promote their car would be, to enter Formula 1. I don’t know who conceptualised that idea, but to them, it made sense, at that time. And to make things worse, there was no jaguar engineering involved in the F1 car. It was all mostly Ford. 

They raced for just 5 years in Formula 1. From 2000, until 2004. They took part in 85 Grand Prixs and they scored only 49 points.

 

So now that you know what I’m talking about, here’s the story. 

It was in 2004 when Ford was getting sort of Fed up with Jaguar in F1. It’s pretty expensive to take part in Formula 1, and they said that the costs weren’t adding up. 

 

Now apart from Scoring points, and winning races, another way in which Formula 1 teams make money is, through sponsorships. This is pretty common in all sports.

So who did Jaguar get as a sponsor? Well, they got into a deal, to promote the blockbuster, Oceans 12.  For those of you who don’t know, the oceans series and particularly Oceans 12 is a Heist movie. It’s about a gang of con artists who steal from some of the biggest casinos on the earth. It even has an absolute banger cast of  George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Catherine Zeta-Jones and many more. You should watch the movie, but first, let me finish telling you this story. 

 

So normally to promote something, teams change the livery of the car.
Like Redbull did to promote stars wars in 2005. And in 2019, when they did the same thing, but for a James bond movie.

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Red Bull’s Star Wars liver from Monaco 2005. What a beauty. #f1 #StarWarsDay pic.twitter.com/184AIq3I4e

— Aidan (@_avk7_) May 4, 2022

 

So you’d jaguar did something similar right? Well almost. 

 

The publicity team thought that the best way to promote the film would be to put a real 300,000$ diamond on the front of the car. Yea an actual Diamond on the nosecone of a formula 1 car. 

In 2004 to promote Oceans 12 a £140,000 diamond was embedded into the nose cone of the 2 jaguar F1 cars at Monaco. On lap one Christian Klien lost his steering and crashed, the car was recovered and 2 hours later they noticed the diamond was gone. It’s never been recovered… pic.twitter.com/gkagVeK0X8

— Michael Stewmacher – 😑 Follow limit 😑 (@last_lap_Lando) December 3, 2020

Oh, and in case you were wondering where they were racing during this promotion. Monaco. 

Monaco is a wealthy nation. The Formula 1 race at Monaco is a star-studded experience with people watching the race from the yachts as well as the stands. 

But the problem with Monaco is. It’s a tough circuit. Overtaking is almost impossible in Monaco and very often, cars crash into the barriers at that race.  

So, the jaguar had 2 cars each with diamonds worth 300,000$ and on the first lap, Christian Klein crashed his jaguar. 

I’ve mentioned that the Monaco track is tight and because of this, the jaguar team members weren’t allowed to go to the car. So when the car finally reached the garage, they were surprised to discover that the diamond was missing. 

 

This story was an instant headline. With new agencies covering it and giving it front-page treatment with Jaguar even  offering a free car to the person who could return the diamond to the company

The theory by the publicity team was that a marshall or spectator probably pocketed the diamond.

And there’s the other side of the story, which says that the incident was probably planned and the diamond was fake and that the jeweller, who was relatively unknown at that time did it to get good publicity. 

 

So what do you think? Calculated risk? bad luck? Or pure stupidity? 

Because the news of a Diamond on a Formula 1 car seems pretty glamorous, But a diamond going missing from a Formula 1 car? That’s what the tabloids love. And I’m sure that’s what the Publicity teams loved as well. 

Remember that Diamond thing in 2004? Where the Jaguar F1 Team raced with 300k worth of diamonds on their cars. They probably kept them but that’s ok…. pic.twitter.com/9nqjVY1Xwx

— flavio (@Angry_Schumi) November 2, 2021