Photo: Christian Klien – Jaguar R5 at the 2004 British Grand Prix. © Martin Lee, London, UK. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Photo: Christian Klien – Jaguar R5 at the 2004 British Grand Prix. © Martin Lee, London, UK. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 Source: FLICKR
The Unforgettable Story of F1’s Lost Diamond
There are many unforgettable moments in F1 history, but few are as strange as the story of the lost diamond at the Monaco GP in 2004.
What began as a clever Hollywood-style marketing stunt ended up turning into one of motorsport’s biggest unsolved mysteries.
A Hollywood Idea at the 2004 Monaco GP
In 2004, Jaguar team partnered with the movie Ocean’s Twelve for a unique publicity stunt, to draw attention to the film’s release, the team mounted real diamonds, each worth around $300,000, on the nose cones of their two F1 cars.
The gems came from the luxury jeweler Steinmetz, and they were meant to sparkle on TV screens as the cars sped around the glamorous streets of Monte Carlo.
Jaguar’s drivers that season were Mark Webber and Christian Klien, a young Austrian rookie just getting used to life in F1, everything seemed set for a bit of fun promotion, until the unexpected happened.
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Christian Klien’s First-Lap Crash and the lost F1 diamond
On the very first lap of the race at the Monaco GP, Klien lost control of the car at the famous Loews hairpin corner and hit the barriers.
The crash was not particularly serious, but when the car was later recovered, something important was missing, the diamond was gone!
Jaguar’s team couldn’t reach the car right away because of race safety rules, by the time they finally got access, nearly two hours had passed.
The diamond, which had been fixed right on the tip of the car’s nose, had simply vanished.
The Search That Led Nowhere
The team did look for it, checked the car but the jewel was nowhere to be found, later analysis of the footage suggested that the diamond might have come loose before Klien even hit the barrier, possibly when he brushed another car earlier in the lap, that meant it could have fallen off anywhere on the circuit.
The problem was, Monaco’s tight street circuit is packed with marshals, photographes and fans in close proximity.
By the time anyone could even think about searching, the small, shiny diamond could have been easily picked up by someone, or swept away with track debris during clean up.
Enduring Theories About the Diamond’s Fate
Over the years, several theories have surfaced, it might have been knocked off early in the lap and simply disappeared intoo the street or a drain.
Or spectator could have pocketed it during the clean up, or it could still be lodged somewhere in a barrier, lost forever under layers of paint and metal.
Even Jaguar’s own spokesperson, Nav Sidhu, admitted at the time that he did not expected they would ever get it back, he believed someone likely took it as a souvenir.
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A Lost F1 Diamond Becomes an Unforgettable Legend
Despite losing an uninsured diamond, the stunt achieved something unexpected, it became an instant legend.
The story of the lost F1 diamond spread worldwide, giving both Jaguar and Ocean’s Twelve more publicity than they ever planned for.
Two decades later, the mystery still fascinates fans, somewhere out there, maybe in a drawer or hidden in a Monaco wall, a diamond that once raced in F1 remains missing, a sparkling secret from one of the sport’s most glamorous weekends.
