How Richard Mille turbo-charged haute horology

Born in Draguignan in southeastern France, the teenage Richard Mille used to get a train to Monaco for the Grand Prix and sleep overnight by the track so he could carve out a good spot to see his heroes Jackie Stewart, Jim Clark and Graham Hill whizz by from a couple of meters away. “He told me he was actually trackside when one of the Ferrari drivers, I think it was Lorenzo Bandini, crashed his car and burst into flames. He saw one of the wheels spinning right in front of him and thought about taking it home.”

In 2006, Felipe Massa was the first Formula 1 driver to wear a Richard Mille watch while racing. The RM11 features plenty of the signatures that have come to define Richard Mille’s way-out futuristic aesthetic: ultra-lightweight titanium movements – in this case a flyback chronograph with variable geometry motor – housed inside a curved tonneau-shaped case made out of the brand’s proprietary Carbon TPT, a substance that combines incredible strength and durability while remaining ridiculously light. When it first crash-landed onto an unsuspecting watch world, it looked as though it had been beamed into from another planet. In the process, it helped create a whole new category of ultra-technical watches that retail at six figures.

“Our partnerships have always been about adding substance to the products we develop in conjunction with drivers,” says Malachard. “So when we partnered with Felipe on the RM11, we wanted him to wear the watch while racing. Richard says that we’re always prepared to go into battle and take risks. Most watch brands would say no to a driver wearing a watch in a race but for us, it’s amazing to have it returned to the factory and see how it performs under pressure unscathed.”

Fast cars, planes and a love of all things mechanical is what inspired Mille, a former luxury industry executive, to found his namesake brand in 2001 as a kind of present to himself when turning the big five-oh. With a clear no-holds-barred, no-expense-spared strategy, the company has since become one of the most successful independent watch brands on the planet. “In Formula 1, it costs what it costs to win,” says Malachard. “And that’s the same approach we have. Richard has always said that a true luxury brand does not cut corners or make any compromises.” Traditionally, in the watch industry, designers and craftsmen are given a brief by the marketing department to create a watch that will retail at a certain price point in order to satisfy a particular segment of the market. Mille’s revolutionary approach is to make the watch first without any regard for cost in the belief that there is always a market for record-breaking innovation and brain-spinning technical complexity. For instance, at the launch of the world’s thinnest watch this year, the RM UP-01 collaboration with Ferrari, which costs a cool €1.75 million (£1.5 million), one of the brand’s sales executives told me simply, ‘You cannot put a price on first.’”