Audemars Piguet: Michael Schumacher Chronograph
Swiss Haute Horlogerie brand Audemars Piguet launches its new Royal Oak Concept Laptimer Michael Schumacher in honour of the F1 legend.
The creation of the watch began in 2010 when the brand’s ambassador Michael Schumacher questioned the manufacture’s team of engineers regarding the possibility of making a mechanical wristwatch designed specifically for use in motorsport. More specifically, Schumacher’s vision entailed a mechanical watch that could measure and record an extended series of consecutive lap times.
Five years after undertaking the challenge, Audemars Piguet is proud to present the first motorsport-specific watch that features a complication of two angular indexing systems with independent memories, on a single chronograph.
The watches chronograph drives two central hands, which can be controlled independently by three pushpieces. The first, located at the traditional two o’clock positon, controls the start and stop of the chronograph. The second, located at a four o’clock position, resets the chronograph. Finally, the third, located a nine o’clock position features the main innovation of the watch. This pushpiece eliminates the need for having two or more hand-held timing devices as it enables the user to stop either of the two chronograph hands while returning the other hand to zero and restarting it. This function allows the most recent lap time to be noted down while the next lap is already underway. This function also allows the watch to keep a certain lap time as reference while measuring new laps with the other chronograph.
The Royal Oak Concept Laptimer Michael Schumacher is the second Audemars Piguest chronograph to carry the name of the celebrated F1 champion. In honour of Schumacher’s career the watch is only available in a strictly limited edition of 221 pieces, paying tribute to the number of F1 World Championship point-winning races in which he competed.
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