Moulins, France – Reported by Coleman Bentley for Elite Traveler, the private jet lifestyle magazine
An advocate of precision in any field, from horology to tennis, Richard Mille has long supported motor sports and its athletes, who’s ability to draft, drift, and run 6-inches from a concrete barrier at 200-miles-per hour routinely redefines the very idea of ‘exact.’ Over the years Richard Mille has developed an extensive Partner Racing Drivers team, featuring acclaimed wheelmen like Felipe Massa, Jules Bianchi, Charles Leclerc, Martin and Alex Brundle, and, now, Romain Dumas.
The fit is comfortable one, seeing as Dumas is as much a fan of the brand as the brand is of his four-wheel mastery. An enthusiast for fine watch making, Dumas has often donned Mille’s titanium RM 011, a watch bred by and designed for racing, while humbling some of the world’s most intimidating swaths of tarmac. It was with this watch on his wrist that the French driver, winner of the Le Mans 24-hour race and of countless prestigious races around the world, set off on Sunday, August 12th to tackle the harrowing hill climb up Colorado’s infamous Pike’s Peak.
Behind the wheel of an untamed Porsche 911 GT3-R, Dumas’s first ‘race to the clouds’ was laid in the tire tracks of those who have driven it before him. Winding along 156 turns and 12 and 1/2 miles of precipice-riddled track, Dumas set the fastest time on the first day of the trials. In the end Dumas finished a mere 17 thousandths of a second behind Rhys Millen, claiming second place for both himself and Richard Mille’s Partner Racing Drivers Team.
Pushing horology boundaries across world, in this case while perched 14,000 feet in the Colorado air, Richard Mille would like to congratulate Romain Dumas on his endurance and skill, two intangibles the watchmaker strives to display in every piece they make.