James Robinson
Horological heavyweight Richard Mille has just unveiled their latest limited edition masterpiece, the Richard Mille RM 50-04 Kimi R?ikk?nen, and there's only one thing we can say Bwoah!In typical fashion only to be expected of Richard Mille, the RM 50-04 is an incredibly complicated and quite frankly wonderful timepiece, designed for the one and only Iceman of the Formula 1 paddock, Mr Kimi-Matias R?ikk?nen.The RM 50-04 also celebrates the watchmaker's affiliation with Alfa Romeo's Formula 1 Racing Team, which R?ikk?nen has been a part of since signing with the Swiss race team in 2018.As a result, the new RM 50-04 not only shares the same colour scheme as R?ikk?nen's C38 Formula 1 car, but the same technological design philosophy and attention to detail.For example, the bezel and caseback of the new timepiece is fashioned from a substance known only as Quartz TPT.It's produced by interlaying no less than 600 layers of silicon, each 45 microns thick, and then impregnating said layers with a white matrix, before placing it all in something called an autoclave and heating it to a sweltering 120 Celsius.According to Richard Mille, the benefits of utilising this material are profound, as Quartz TPT possesses a very strong resistance/weight ratio, excellent non-allergenic properties and is incredibly resistant to UV.The RM 50-04's movement, a manually wound tourbillon with a split-seconds chronograph complication, 30-minute totaliser, and a power-reserve, torque and function indicator, is equally as technologically awe-inspiring, and is said to be able to withstand an impact of up to 5000 Gs, which is a good thing, because when you bin it in F1, you're usually going quite quickly.How can it withstand this level of compounded gravity? Well, for a start, the movement's baseplate and bridges are hewn from Grade 5 titanium, well, 90 per cent Grade 5 titanium, with the other 10 per cent being made up of 6 per cent aluminium and 4 per cent vanadium whatever that is!Anyway, the net result is a material that's tougher than the steely-eyed glare R?ikk?nen will give you if he finds out you've stolen one of his Magnum ice creams.Oh, and just like the Formula 1 car he races, the RM 50-04's movement is incredibly light: just 7 grams, to be precise.And because of this amazingly lightweight construction, the Iceman will actually be wearing his watch while racing around the Marina Bay Sands street circuit when he takes part in this weekend's Singapore Grand Prix.Just 30 examples of the RM 50-04 will be produced, and unless you were one of the three lucky so-and-sos who won Powerball on Thursday night, chances are it might be a bit out of your budget, because it costs roughly $1.6 million Aussie dollars.Anyway, it'll be R?ikk?nen's 307th F1 race when he sets off on Sunday evening. Here's hoping he doesn't have to put the RM 50-04's 5000G impact rating to the test.
21.09.19