Audemars Piguet Honor F1 Racer Michael Schumacher With Royal Oak Offshore
Famed F1 driver Michael Schumacher worked closely with luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet’s chief artistic officer Octavio Garcia to help design a new chronograph dedicated to his racing triumphs. The Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph Michael Schumacher is dedicated to the man who many consider the greatest race car driver of all time; Schumacher has seven world championship titles, innumerable race victories, pole positions, winning more points than any other driver in the sport.
The technical specifications of the Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph embody the commonalities between race car driving and watch design;the paramount importance of timing, precision, integrity, exceptional engineering, superlative standards, and no compromises. Furthermore, the design of this timepiece captures Schumacher’s high-speed lifestyle where dedication is the key to success and luxury.
The Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph is available in titanium, pink gold and platinum. The 44mm-diaeter case surrounds an octagonal dial in the Royal Oak Offshore Mega Tapisserie pattern, with shades of deep gray outlining the waffled dimensions. Five stars display between 12 and 1 o’clock; two in blue represent Schumacher’s championship victory driving for Benetton in 95 – 96, while five red stars represent his victory driving for Ferrari from 2000-04. The minute hand traces a circle over subtle black and white squares calling the checks of the finish flag. The chronograph counters have raised frames evoking the dashboard dials of high-performance vehicles, in black for the titanium and pink gold versions and blue for the platinum edition. The minute and hour hands mimic the swooping shape of a car’s metal outer shell while the red-tipped chronograph hands and date reader draw the eye to each display in turn. The rubber band is fastened to the dial with stain brushed titanium studs representing a race car’s cooling scoops and featuring red accents to the Audemars Piguet Logo.
An exhibition caseback provides a glimpse into the self-winding caliber 3126/3840 powering the watch while the 22 carat gold oscillating weight displays the Audemars Piguet logo and showcases Michael Schumacher’s well-known MS signature in three-dimensional form. These features in combination make it plain to see why, as Michael Schumacher himself says, Audemar’s Piguet has the “Combination of design, hand craftsmanship, functionality and innovation which marks its watches out from the rest,” making them “highly prized by drivers,” and a brand he is honored to work with and lend his name to.
Source and photos courtesy Audemars Piguet press release.
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