Richard Mille presents the new RM 011 Silicon Nitride, manufactured using the same lightweight super-strong material used to build Formula 1 engines.
Richard Mille is known (we assume) around the horologist circuit for being something of a petrolhead: we’ve featured both the Jean Todt Edition and RM011 Felipe Massa Yas Marina Flyback chronograph from the company previously on crankandpiston. His latest work though takes petrolhead enthusiasm to a whole new level with the RM 011 Silicon Nitride, the design of which is inspired by Formula 1 cars.
Well, I say ‘inspired by’. What I actually mean is ‘shares materials with’. The 50mm x 40mm case of this edition for instance is built using the same super-strong, super-light silicon nitride that goes into making engine valves and turbo rotors on F1 engines. This ensures both the reliability and strength of the mechanisms, and also works in harmony with a variable geometry rotor that optimises the automatic winding mechanism according to the wearer’s movements.
No, we don’t really understand what that means either. But then, we shouldn’t. The RM 011 was inspired by a Formula 1 car: it’s very clever, amazingly technical, impossible to comprehend and mightily expensive. Said rotor could invariably lead to steward’s enquiries concerning legality, secret three-day tests, and calls from horology diehards that ‘these aren’t real watches anymore’.
But as always, the team did a fantastic job.
Source – Richard Mille
