Richard Mille RM004-V2 All Gray AH TI

Felipe Massa must love Richard Mille. The Brazilian F1 driver has been an ambassador of the brand since 2004. And he gets to strap on a succession of insanely complex, timelessly daring luxury sports watches without paying a cent for them. Then he climbs into his current drive, and hammers his luxury watches around racetracks at speeds that would cause most timepieces to shake themselves apart.
The RM004 was actually the first Richard Mille watch to bear the Felipe Massa name. The RM004-V2 All Gray AH TI updates the original run of the watch, which was extremely limited: just 5 of the debut titanium RM004 models were produced.
Like every Richard Mille Felipe Massa piece, the RM004-V2 All Gray crams a ton of indication onto its skeletonised dial. There's a tachymetric scale on the inner bezel ring. A function indicator (Hand-setting, Winding, and Neutral) sits at 4 o'clock. The torque indicator, located between 1 and 3, acts as a snapshot of the movement's health: too high, and the mainspring is dangerously overwound, too low and it isn't delivering enough power. Between 10 and 11, the power reserve indicator shows how much juice is left before the watch needs to be wound. As the RM004-V2 is manually-wound, these twin indications are vital: the torque indicator prevents the wearer from overwinding the mainspring.
Caseback, bezel, and caseband are in titanium. The spectacularly complex calibre RM 004-V2 is visible through sapphire glass, front and back. This is, according to Richard Mille , 'one of the most complicated timepieces ever released in the watchmaking industry'. And while the phrase has a distinct ring of marketing over-speak to it (what about the Henry Graves Supercomplication? Or Gerald Genta's Grande Sonnerie Retro?), it's fair to say that the Richard Mille RM004-V2 is an impressive achievement.
The core of the RM004 is its split-seconds chronograph. A split-seconds chrono, also called a double chronograph, is capable of timing two separate, simultaneous events. It does this with two seconds hands. Activate the chrono, and the hands move in locked step around the face of the watch. Activate the split seconds, and one hand stops while the other keeps going (thus 'splitting' the two second hands).
The split seconds complication is delicate enough. But of course, this wasn't a completely satisfying challenge for someone like Richard Mille. And so the designer took it upon himself to reimagine the luxury watch's entire gear train—reducing the inertia present in the chrono hands before they spring into action (a 'jump' that normally results in microscopic loss of accuracy). He also designed pincers with infinitesimally-precise clearance over the gear wheel that governs the split-seconds hand. The RM004's perfectly-crafted components allow the split-seconds complication to start and stop on a dime, creating a completely mechanical and manual luxury watch that has the accuracy of a modern timekeeping machine.
Hyper-delicate, and strong enough to survive in the cockpit of Massa's Sauber (that's the car he was driving at the time of its release), the RM004-V2 is a luxury watch of contradictions. It's almost as though Richard Mille went out of his way to create a timepiece in which hundreds of delicate parts would be required to perform the most precise and difficult of complications: and then threw it into the belly of the F1 storm to see if it could cope with the pressure. And, of course, it did. Because if there's one thing Richard Mille understands, it's how to create a luxury watch that defies convention.
The strength of this luxury watch lies inside. The chronograph wheel is in titanium. The central bridge is in Grade 5 titanium. The movement is protected from shock by a KIF ELASTOR shock spring, and the barrel shaft is sandwiched in hardened steel. As the watch absorbs the vibrations from the track, transmitted through Massa's arms and hands, its internal armour keeps the calibre in prime racing condition.
Unusually for a Richard Mille, the bracelet on the RM004-V2 All Gray is leather. It's also black, which steals a little thunder from the name: this isn't really an all-grey watch, but it is massively understated for a piece from this brand. The double-fold clasp is locked with a titanium buckle. Hands and hour indicators are lumed, and the hours are also marked with Arabic numerals.
You'll see the Richard Mille RM004-V2 on the wrists of the hyper-famous, and of course on the brand's impressive roster of ambassadors. But you won't see one in the wild, that is unless you have a Richard Mille boutique near you. Or if you're 90s soul sensation Seal, who owns one too. Fortunately, you'll find one on the collector's market from time to time.
If you want a luxury watch that marries the trademark ostensible style of Richard Mille with a surprising amount of grace, this one's for you. vedere di piu copie rolex e Breitling Cockpit