Richard Mille RM 27-02 Tourbillon Rafael Nadal

There are sports watches and watches designed specifically for sports that are designed for extreme loads. Regardless of whether they are on the wrist of an F1 driver, or on the wrist of a golfer, or a super-fast sprinter, the watch created by Richard Mille can withstand all difficult situations. With the start of the French Open (Roland Garros 2015), it is time to present one of the latest results of the partnership between the manufactory and the ambassador, the Richard Mille RM 27-02 Tourbillon Rafael Nadal.

A common and impressive feature that is characteristic of all sports watches created by Richard Mille is the ability to use them in a specific field. We are not referring to the sporty appearance of existing watches, we are saying that the watches are designed for use during sports at an extreme level, are resistant to the worst situations and were invented not for athletes, but with them.

For example, the RM 36-01 model was created together with rally driver Sebastien Loeb and has the ability to measure overloads, the RM 055 model was invented together with golf champion Bubba Watson and can withstand vibrations during a strong impact, and the RM 59-01 Tourbillon model was created for sprinter Yohan Blake and has an ultra-lightweight aerodynamically shaped body. Richard Mille uses the outstanding abilities of athletes not only for marketing reasons, but also as R&D partners to develop new watches with special technologies.

Richard Mille RM 27-02 Tourbillon Rafael Nadal is the result of a partnership with one of the greatest tennis players of our time: Rafael Nadal. What we see in this model is once again a super-light watch, with a sophisticated mechanism, impressive case design, innovative and stunning material, and very high impact resistance. The first thing that catches your eye is the special case of a very incredible color.

It is made of quartz quartz – for the first time in watchmaking. This unique black and white color is created thanks to layers of construction (more than 600 layers in total), where quartz and carbon fibers alternate. Richard Mille engineers have developed a very original material known as TPT quartz, consisting of hundreds of layers of quartz fibers stacked on top of each other. The automated placement system alternates quartz layers with NTPT carbon layers, positioning the fibers of adjacent layers at a 45-degree angle. The layers appear on the surface in a chaotic manner, making each watch model unique.

The second innovation is the design of the watch. As a rule, the body and mechanism are separate parts, assembled together at the end of the assembly process and connected by screws. In this model, Richard Mille took inspiration from the chassis of racing cars, creating a “solid” support plate. In fact, the black bezel of the Richard Mille RM 27-02 model (to which the bezel and back cover are attached) and the skeletonized bridges that hold the parts of the mechanism are a single product made of NTPT carbon fiber. As in a racing car, the engine is directly integrated into the chassis. Thus, a watch was created that, firstly, is very light on the wrist, but, most importantly, is extremely resistant to impacts (up to 5,000 g) – and turned out to be very practical on the wrist of Rafael Nadal, whose ball stroke is 215 km /h.