STYLE Edit: How luxury watchmaker Richard Mille is blazing a trail on the track with its Racing Team – from the first all-women’s team to the newest mixed driver line-up

In 2020, Richard Mille took this commitment to motorsport to another level with the debut of the Richard Mille Racing Team. The brand is renowned as a trailblazer, and it was determined to live up to that reputation with its racing team. Its initial aim was to challenge ingrained biases and do something about the lack of female representation in top-level driving. Led by the company’s brand and partnerships director Amanda Mille, it featured an all female line-up of drivers for its first two seasons, consisting of Beitske Visser, Sophia Flörsch and Tatiana Calderón, who were selected through a vigorous vetting process in partnership with the Women In Motorsport Commission of the FIA, the sport’s global governing body.

With a focus on endurance racing – the long distance form of motorsport that tests stamina and durability as well as speed – they initially lined up in the highly competitive European Le Mans Series. But the trio also appeared in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, part of the top-level FIA World Endurance Championship. Not just the most prestigious event in the world of endurance racing, the 24 Hours of Le Mans is one of the most iconic and enduring races in any class of motorsport. The drivers’ impressive debut performance in the race, finishing ninth in the LMP2 category, was a key reason why they were able to take a step up in 2021, when they took to the grid in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

For 2022, the team has taken another step forward, deciding to field a mixed female/male line-up for its third season. And what a line-up it is: Lilou Wadoux became the first woman to win in the Alpine Elf Europa Cup series in 2021; Charles Milesi is an established endurance driver, winning three races last year in his first full World Endurance Championship season, including in the LMP2 class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans; while Sébastien Ogier is a bona fide legend in another form of motorsport – rallying – with eight World Rally Championships under his belt, the second most in history.

The trio of drivers all take to the track suitably adorned with timepieces that constitute their perfect racing partners, equipped to handle whatever situation their sport can throw at them.

Milesi and Ogier both race wearing the RM 67-02 Automatic Extra Flat, the lightest automatic watch in the Richard Mille collection, and therefore ideal for a sport where the finest margins count. Indeed, it was created with a flexible design that allows it to be adapted to suit different sportspeople, available in a range of different colour schemes: while Milesi’s is red with a white strap, Ogier sports one in grey with a blue strap. Built around the extra flat CRMA7 movement, the seventh calibre Richard Mille has created in-house, the watches are so slimline they virtually merge with the wrist, weighing in at just 32 grams. They’re made from materials designed to be as light and resilient as possible: Carbon TPT and Quartz TPT for the case, made from filaments of those materials less than 40 microns thick; and a 4mm thick sheet of titanium for the dial.