A New Holy Grail: AP Royal Oak Concept Laptimer Michael Schumacher

A column wheel chronograph is the finest expression of a manufacture’s prowess and Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak Concept Laptimer Michael Schumacher has no fewer than three.

As far as chronographs go, it’s a mechanical opus greater than the already popular Royal Oak Offshore chronograph series. This is important because it sets context for its nascent greatness; unlike its modular chronograph cousin, the Concept Laptimer’s Calibre 2923 is built completely in-house, representing a new milestone for the Le Brassus manufacture, the movement bears laptimer functions via double flyback central seconds hands, 30 minutes counter, small seconds, hours and minutes.

A split-seconds chronograph or rattrapante on steroids, the new AP laptimer wields two seconds hands which are controlled independently via three pushers: at 2 o’clock starts and stops timing function like a regular chronograph while the 4 o’clock button resets it. The third pusher at 9 o’clock is where the magic happens: where a “run-of-the-mill” rattrapante stops to allow reading of that moment in time as the second hand continues to run, on AP’s latest mechanical wonder, you get to stop one of two timing hands while resetting the other, giving the new timepiece it’s namesake function of laptiming: you get the timing of the first lap while the other runs and if keeping your first lap as a point of reference is necessary, a button press at 4 o’clock allows you to send the flyback hand back to zero and run anew. Or, if you’re not Michael Schumacher, a mortal like you could simple use the two seconds hands as a traditional flyback chronograph.

The manufacture AP. Calibre 2923 was conceived over a five year period and we cannot understate that the Laptimer Michael Schumacher is the first mechanical chronograph with these capabilities: Thanks to its hand-wound nature, the column wheels are visible on the reverse side, the one at 6 o’clock controls the chronograph sequence, while the other two at 12 control the complicated laptimer sequence. The gear train is supported by twin mainspring barrels in parallel provided unprecedented torque and 80 hours power reserve. Amongst these technical feature are specially developed conical gear teeth which allow perfectly linear torque transmission and exceptionally smooth operation.