Close Up: Richard Mille Automatic Flyback Chronograph RM 011 Lotus F1 Team-Romain Grosjean

This week Haute Time has been in Los Angeles, where we visited the city’s hottest haute horlogerie boutiques. One of our favorite visits was to the Richard Mille boutique on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

While we’ll be bringing you our full boutique visit next week, today we’ve got a close up look at Richard Mille’s Automatic Flyback Chronograph RM 011 Lotus F1 Team-Romain Grosjean in carbon NTPT®.

This limited edition timepiece was the result of Richard Mille’s partnership with Romain Grosjean, the Lotus F1 team’s driver. Grosjean followed in the footsteps of Felipe Massa and Sébastien Loeb to become one of Richard Mille’s test drivers, and is putting this timepiece to the test during this Grand Prix season.

As its name indicates, the case of this timepiece is in NTPT® carbon, a material exclusive to Richard Mille consisting of over 600 layers of carbon fibers. This corrosion-proof and exceptionally rigid, impact-resistant material will be subjected to incredible speeds, vibration and weather as the F1 driver wears the watch outside his overalls on the track.

The 50mm x 40mm (at its widest point) x 16.15mm (at its thickest point) black NTPT® carbon case and the gold pushpieces, crown and numerals represent the colors of Lotus’ historic black and gold livery. The pushpiece between 1 and 2 o’clock starts and stops the chronograph function, while the pushpiece between 4 and 5 o’clock resets the flyback function.

The openworked dial features hours and minutes, as well as a central chronograph hand for the tachymeter scale, an oversize date display under 12 o’clock, a 60-minute countdown timer at 3 o’clock, a month display between 4 and 5 o’clock, a 12-hour totalizer at 6 o’clock and small seconds at 9 o’clock. There is also a Lotus F1 Team logo decal under 12 o’clock, while RM 011 R. Grosjean is indicated in gold between 7 and 8 o’clock.

Photo credit: Haute Time.