Watch expert Nico Leonard has continuously grown in popularity on social media, owing mostly to his YouTube videos where he reviews watches worn by celebs and busts myths around the same. Boasting a solid 1.62 million subscribers, Leonard once opted to review watches worn by F1 drivers and was left baffled when he saw the timepiece wrapped around the wrist of Kimi Raikkonen.
In 2021, Leonard uploaded a video on his official YouTube channel where he reacted to some of the craziest watches owned by the F1 A-listers. While Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo, and co.’s watches impressed the expert, Raikkonen’s $2.8 million timepiece left him gasping for air.
“Ah, look at that! What the f*ck?! That’s an RM 50-04 Split Seconds Chronograph. That’s insane! That is a watch!”
The Richard Mille 50-04 is one of the company’s most exclusive watches ever made. It comes with a manual winding tourbillon movement with hours, minutes, a split-second chronograph, a 30-minute totalizer, power reserve, torque, and function indicators. With only 30 pieces of the watch, it also stands as one of the company’s most sturdy designs, able to withstand pressures of nearly 5000 G’s.
Standing as a major title sponsor to multiple teams in F1, Richard Mille often gives the drivers their watches as gifts. Ferrari and McLaren are two teams that come under the umbrella of RM sponsorship. The drivers of these teams often receive custom-made watches by the luxury watchmakers. While the exclusivity of such watches is often charming, it also leads to drivers becoming more prone to robberies.
While Kimi Raikkonen enjoys his watch, a couple other F1 drivers had to suffer ill-fate
Back during the Euro 2020 final between England and Italy in Wembley, Lando Norris became a victim of robbery in addition to watching his team lose the final. A couple of masked robbers cornered the British driver, and one of them put him in a headlock. The other robber snatched a $184k Richard Mille 67-02 off his wrist. The watch was one of only five in the world.
In 2022, Charles Leclerc also became a victim of a watch robbery while he was in Tuscany. Four robbers approached Leclerc posing as his fans and slipped off the Monegasque’s $320k worth Richard Mille. Leclerc decided to chase after the robbers in his custom Ferrari 488 Pista Spider but could not get hold of them. After months of investigation, the Italian police were able to capture the four robbers involved in the incident.
With F1 being such a huge platform, luxury watchmakers find the drivers as one of the best options to show their signature products off in front of the media and public. Away from Richard Mille, many other luxury watchmakers have ties with drivers on the grid, compelling them to only flaunt their brands.
Much like Richard Mille and Daniel Ricciardo, IWC and Hamilton share sponsorship ties. Lance Stroll has ties with Girard-Perregaux, while Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez flaunt Tag Heuer watches wherever they go.
