Richard Mille Celebrates The Centenary Of The Mythical 24 Hours Of Le Mans With A New Watch

As the 11^th edition of Le Mans Classic, one of the world’s largest gatherings of cars, gets underway this weekend in northwestern France in celebration of the centenary of the 24 Hours of Le Mans – among the most famous endurance motor races on the globe – luxury watchmaker Richard Mille launches the new RM 72-01 Le Mans Classic in green and white Quartz TPT in a limited edition of 150 pieces. More than 230,000 spectators from France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and the United States are expected to watch the 800 competing cars and 1,000 drivers from 30 countries in six traditional grids and four support races, alongside 8,500 automobiles representing 210 car clubs from all over Europe, exhibitions by prestigious brands like Alfa Romeo, Bentley, BMW, De Tomaso, Maserati and McLaren, and entertainment in the paddocks and villages.

A long-time partner of Le Mans Classic and its founder Patrick Peter, Richard Mille has been the main sponsor of the event ever since its debut in 2002, and has produced a special timepiece to accompany every edition since 2008. At this year’s Le Mans Classic, loyal partner and friend of the brand, Rafael Nadal – who has had several Richard Mille watches developed for him to wear while playing his tournaments since 2010, the latest being the RM 27-04 Tourbillon – will kick off the race by waving the tricolor flag to give the official Le Mans-style start to grid 1. Mirroring the performance of the race cars lapping the 13.626 km of the Le Mans track, the RM 72-01 LMC is Richard Mille’s first flyback chronograph and showcases a patented double oscillating pinion clutch mechanism for optimum performance. Powered by a skeletonized self-winding movement with a 50-hour power reserve, the “16” on the hour counter is highlighted in red, referencing the race’s traditional 4pm start time, and a checkered flag motif surrounds the date display. Richard Mille Marketing Director, Timothée Malachard, speaks about sponsoring historic car events and getting motor racing drivers and athletes to test drive its timepieces.

Do you see a return on investment from your automotive partnerships?

We don’t calculate the return on investment financially. What’s important for us is creating added value in the development of watches with these partners, so what we do with Ferrari and McLaren is really working with their designers and with our engineers to make products that are really close to the spirit of what both brands have. Now when we do these collaborations, it’s very important that the watches are first and foremost Richard Mille watches but, at the same time, they have an influence from these partner brands. So what we’ve done with Ferrari and McLaren has that influence from their design and engineering teams as well. A partnership is something that we want to really build long term and not just do a one off, and obviously it’s all about passion for us. It’s the will to really work together and create fun, interesting products that really have substance, and there’s nothing better than when you have the engineers and owners of both brands meeting each other and saying this is how we do these things and you learn from it. It’s really invigorating because you’ve learned a lot from this.

How important is it to test a watch’s performance and shock resistance, to show that it performs in real life, that real race car drivers and sportsmen wear it when playing to win?

By putting watches on the wrists of our athletes and motor racing drivers, it’s first and foremost to prove that whole watch can withstand motor racing and the shocks involved, so they’re like our test dummies, and that enables us to then really gain so much know-how in our factory. Over the last 20 years, we’ve gotten to the point with our engineers where our watches are super reliable, super technical and incredible performance. And thanks to all these partnerships we have, it’s actually really improved the brand. It’s improved our know-how and the way we push the limits, always trying to see how we can surpass ourselves every time. What’s great is all these different sports are very different, from motor racing and alpine skiing to tennis and golf. Every time we do a Richard Mille watch, it’s always had different criteria and it’s a different white sheet of paper. We start by saying we’re going to do a watch for so and so, how do we go about this, and we work with that partner to ask what’s the most important thing to them. Is it how light it is, how ergonomic it is, what functions? It’s a real conversation with the partner to try and find something that’s adapted to him. Nadal took convincing to wear the watch to play tennis. He said, “Richard, make me a watch that I can’t feel, that’s extremely extremely light.” So Richard said, “I’m going to make a watch that you can’t feel. We made a watch that was less than 20 grams, and then we did a record at 17 or 18 grams, so every time we do a new edition, it’s not an issue for him. He knows that we’re going to make it as light and comfortable as possible.

How do you choose the other classic car events that you sponsor like the Nurburgring Classic, Chantilly Arts & Elegance, Rallye des Légendes and Rallye des Princesses?

The Rallye des Princesses is a rally that we’ve sponsored since 2014 and it’s purely ladies’ teams that are racing in historic cars. The Rallye des Légendes is the same thing, but for guys. It’s a way of sharing the passion we have of driving in very nice locations, discovering a new region, some new roads, new restaurants, whether it be in Spain, France or Italy. It’s creating an experience and spending three or four days with our customers and journalists. It’s not about competition but about having the same values and seeing cars that you don’t see being driven on public roads being used and not stuck in a garage, being what we call a “garage queen”, or just being exhibited in museums. For us, watches are designed to be worn, cars are designed to be driven, and so that’s what these events are about.