Overview

The closing edition of the RM 011

The RM 011 was introduced in 2007 as Richard Mille’s collaboration with the Formula 1 driver Felipe Massa, and became the brand’s standard automatic chronograph across nearly a decade and a long run of regional and commemorative editions. In 2016 it was replaced by the RM 11-03. The Last Edition marks the end of that run, in a limited edition of 50 pieces.

Its case departs from the titanium and gold executions that preceded it: baby blue TZP ceramic, carried across the bezel and the caseband alike, in the reference’s usual 50.00 × 42.70 mm tonneau. The crown and the pushers are left in bare titanium against it, the pusher guards marked in orange.

The skeletonised dial works in orange rather than the red used elsewhere in the Felipe Massa line — orange chronograph hands, orange detailing on the three counters, an orange-outlined oversize date aperture and an orange tachymeter scale on the flange, against white Arabic numerals and a black movement. An RM011-FM plaque sits at 8 o’clock. The strap is baby blue rubber, matching the case.

Inside is the calibre RMAC1, unchanged: an automatic flyback chronograph with a 60-minute countdown timer at 9 o’clock, a 12-hour totaliser, an oversize date below 12 o’clock and a month indicator between 4 and 5 o’clock, the two calendar displays forming an annual calendar that needs correcting once a year at the end of February.

Key details

Design and engineering

• Calibre RMAC1Skeletonised automatic winding movement with variable-geometry rotor, offering hours, minutes, seconds, flyback chronograph, 60-minute countdown timer at 9 o’clock, 12-hour totaliser, oversize date and month indicator.
• Flyback chronographThe pusher between 4 and 5 o’clock resets the chronograph without the mechanism first having to be stopped; the pusher between 1 and 2 o’clock starts and stops it. The function originates in aviation, where it avoided the time lost in stopping, resetting and restarting a chronograph at a navigational point.
• Annual calendarThe oversize date sits below 12 o’clock and the month in an aperture angled between 4 and 5 o’clock. The mechanism accounts for months of 30 and 31 days, requiring a single manual correction each year at the end of February.
• Variable-geometry rotorThe winding weight can be set so that winding efficiency matches the wearer’s activity level.
• Free-sprung balanceSpecified for reliability under shock, with the movement mounted on rubber shock absorbers.
• TZP ceramicTetragonal zirconia polycrystal, produced by sintering zirconium oxide powder under heat and pressure. Richard Mille specifies it for hardness, scratch resistance and colour stability, and works it with diamond tooling. Here it is carried across the bezel and the caseband in a single matte baby blue, with the case screws left dark against it.
• Orange colourwayChronograph hands, counter detailing, date aperture outline and flange tachymeter are all orange, in place of the red used across the earlier Felipe Massa executions.
• Case productionRichard Mille records 68 stamping operations across the bezel, case middle and caseback, machine tooling requiring eight days of adjustment for the bezel and five each for the middle section and caseback, and 202 separate machining operations per rough case.
• Dial and crystalsThe dial is sapphire, 0.40 mm thick with anti-glare treatment on both faces, held by eight silicon braces in the upper and lower grooves. The bezel-side crystal is curved sapphire, 1.20 mm, with anti-glare treatment on both sides; the caseback is curved sapphire, 1.00 mm at the centre and 1.73 mm at the outer edges.

Specifications

Technical specifications

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Related references

RM 11-03

Richard Mille · RM 11-03 Black Carbon TPT

RM 11-03

Richard Mille · RM011 AO CA-ATZ

RM 11-03

Richard Mille · RM 011