In 2010, legendary F1 driver and Audemars Piguet ambassador Michael Schumacher posed a seemingly straightforward question to the company’s engineers: would it be possible to create a wristwatch designed specifically for motor sports that could time and record a long series of consecutive laps?
This was a challenge never before met by a mechanical watch. Measuring and comparing lap times consecutively meets the very specific needs of motor racing. Traditionally, this task is accomplished by means of a timing bench equipped with at least two chronographs, positioned one behind the other.
Today, after almost five years of development, the company presents the first watch dedicated to motor sports to feature a complication imagined by Michael Schumacher: a chronograph with two angular indexing systems, each with its own “memory”. It also features the first Audemars Piguet movement to be designed entirely at the request of one of its ambassadors.
This timepiece features a single chronograph equipped with two independent central hands controlled by three pushers: the first positioned at two o’clock to start and stop the chronograph, the second at four o’clock to reset the chronograph to zero, and the third, the most important, at nine o’clock.
This third pusher stops one of the two chronograph hands and simultaneously resets and restarts the other. So, while the time of the previous lap is being recorded, the timing of the next lap is already underway. This procedure makes it possible to dispense with the need for two or more chronographs, simplifying the process by using a single wrist chronograph.
Finally, it can be used as a “classic” flyback chronograph by operating the two hands in parallel.
The Royal Oak Concept Laptimer Michael Schumacher is the world’s first mechanical chronograph with an alternating consecutive lap timing system with flyback function, conceived and designed specifically to measure lap times continuously on the racetrack, with flawless precision.
This Royal Oak Concept will be the second Audemars Piguet watch to bear the driver’s name. To celebrate his career, the Royal Oak Concept Laptimer Michael Schumacher will be available in a strictly limited edition of 221, in reference to the number of F1 World Championship Grand Prix points he has won.
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