There has been notably little news about the legendary Formula 1 driver Michael Schumacher since the catastrophic skiing accident that took him out of the public eye in December 2013, so the announcement today that his family has consigned a selection of his personal watches to Christie’s flagship Geneva sale in May comes as a surprise, to say the least.
Although all the lots have yet to be confirmed (it is thought a total of eight watches will be offered) , information about the two star pieces has been released.
The first is a unique example of an F.P Journe ‘Vagabondage’ featuring a platinum case and a personalised dial finished in ‘Ferrari red’ with the marque’s prancing horse shield at the nine o’clock position and a facsimile of Schumacher’s race helmet at three.
Encircling the dial are seven FIA globe emblems, each representing one of the star’s seven F1 driver’s World Championship victories (the last five of which he achieved consecutively between 2000 and 2004 while driving for Ferrari).
The watch dates from that final championship year and was gifted to Schumacher by his mentor, the one-time Ferrari CEO and Scuderia manager Jean Todt. A dedication engraved on the case back reads: “Xmas 2004 – Jean Todt for my friend Michael Schumacher’.
Christie’s has not applied a pre-sale estimate to the watch, but given its unique status and remarkable provenance – combined with the fact that it is a platinum Vagabondage – it is not over-optimistic to suggest that it could fetch more than CHF 1m.
The other notable piece also came via Todt (whose own collection of 111 watches raised a remarkable CHF 31.8m at Christie’s in 2022) and is also a ‘piece unique’.
Again a Christmas gift and engraved on the back ‘J. Todt pour M. Schumacher, Noel 2003’, the white gold Audemars Piguet Royal Oak chronograph has a similarly personalised dial to the F.P Journe, but this time the image of Schumacher’s race helmet forms the background of the 12-hour sub dial at nine o’clock, while the Ferrari prancing horse symbol appears on the 60-second sub at six o’clock.
The 30-minute counter at three o’clock, meanwhile, carries six small stars – one for each of the World Championship wins Schumacher had racked-up by 2003. Again, no official estimate has been released, but we expect this watch to fetch something north of CHF 500,000.
Christie’s European watch head Remi Guillemin says he was in discussion with Schumacher’s family for two years regarding the watches, and that they have now decided to sell in order to make them available to collectors, F1 enthusiasts and fans of the German driver.
At the time Todt gifted the watches to Schumacher, the driver was a long-standing ambassador for Omega which had produced several versions of the Speedmaster ‘reduced’ carrying his name.
In 2010, however, it was announced that he had moved to Audemars Piguet which, two years later, launched a trio of Royal Oak Offshore models dedicated to him.
What is less well known, however, is that Schumacher had been working with the brand to develop a watch specifically designed for his requirements as a racing driver.
The Royal Oak Concept Laptimer Michael Schumacher featured a unique mechanical chronograph function with two central hands that could be repeatedly stopped, started and re-set independently to enable accurate, consecutive timing of individual laps.
Schumacher had been helping to create the watch for more than two years prior to his life-changing accident, after which his family expressed a wish that work should continue on the design in order to develop it into a commercial proposition.
The watch cost CHF 210,000 and a total of 221 examples were made, reflecting the number of races in which Schumacher had scored World Championship points.
