The mystery surrounding the crash that left an ultra-exclusive supercar with £300k of damage has intensified, after the car's owner said "an internationally famous racing champ" was driving.
However, speaking to the Scottish Daily Record, castle-dwelling oil tycoon Gareth Jones refused to name the man who was at the wheel when his £528,000 Pagani Zonda S left the road left the road and hit a telegraph pole outside Aberdeen in September 2009.
Meanwhile, a story run by rival the Press and Journal - which had claimed the unknown driver was none other than Scottish racing legend Sir Jackie Stewart - has been taken down from the paper's website this morning.
A spokesperson for the driver, who won the Formula One world championship on three occasions, emphatically denied the reports, stating that Sir Jackie was not in the country at the time of the incident, has never driven the car, and does not know its owner.
The fateful crash apparently took place during a magazine test of the car, which can rocket to 60mph in comfortably less than four seconds, and power on to around 220mph.
However, Jones told the Daily Record that the un-named driver was in no way to blame for the incident, which left the beautifully-crafted body of the car wrapped in barbed wire, but that mud on the road had caused him to lose control.
"He was driving the car in such fine balance that he never once triggered the traction control," Jones added.
"It was the state of the road that caused the crash."
But the incident has apparently not put the millionaire off his love affair with the hand-built Pagani marque.
According to the paper, Jones has traded in the Zonda S - currently being fixed up in Italy - for an even more extreme Zonda F Clubsport model.
