IWC Schaffhausen set to enter the motor-racing season in 2013 as the Official Engineering Partner of the MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS Formula One™ Team...
To mark their cooperation, IWC is launching the Ingenieur Chronograph Racer in stainless steel with an engraving of a Formula One™ racing car on the case back. For one of the parties in the venture, time is a genuine ally; for the other, a powerful opponent. Nevertheless, the engineers and designers from IWC Schaffhausen and the mechanics with the MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS Formula One™ Team have the same vision: they repeatedly push the boundaries of mechanical engineering and redefine the limits of precision technology.
The two companies have a name for this untiring quest for perfection: performance engineering. As part of this joint venture, IWC is dedicating the Ingenieur Chronograph Racer (Ref. IW378507, IW378508, IW378509, IW378510) to the Formula One™ racing team. Recording periods of time of up to 12 hours, timing pit stops and calculating the average speed attained over a measured distance: there is virtually no time-related task to which the watch is not equal.
The development of the 89361 calibre is a perfect example of the crucial role played by passion and expertise in the quest to achieve a leading position in the Constructors’ Championship for watch manufacturers. A team of engineers at IWC Schaffhausen spent four years developing this superb movement. In the beginning was a vision: the members of the team wanted to develop a chronograph display that would eliminate the mental arithmetic needed to calculate recorded times of over one minute using both the hour and minute counters. In addition, they set themselves the ambitious goal of making the ingenious Pellaton winding system, one of the most outstanding watchmaking achievements ever to emerge from Schaffhausen, even more efficient. A solution to the first challenge was soon found. Recorded hours and minutes are combined in a single totalizer which has two hands and is read off like an analogue watch display:for example “8 hours and 52 minutes”.
The Ingenieur Chronograph Racer is available with a slate-coloured dial and black totalizers or with a silver-plated dial, silver-plated totalizers and blue hands and appliqués. The red “60” in the chapter ring was inspired by the digital display on the steering wheel of the MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS Formula One™ racing car, which shows the selected gear, oil temperature and lap times during the race. The engraving of a Formula One™ racing car – a modern Silver Arrow, of course – decorates the case back.
V.S.
