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Rolex Racing News

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Max Angelelli and Ricky Taylor won the rain-shortened Grand Prix of Miami on Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, in the No. 10 SunTrust Racing Corvette DP.

It marked the 19th victory for SunTrust Racing -- second in Grand-AM Rolex Series history, in the headlining DP (Daytona Prototype) class.

The third race of the Rolex Series season, scheduled for 2 hours, 45 minutes, was halted 52 minutes early because of rain, which hampered visibility and caused huge puddles on some portions of the 2.3-mile road course.

Twenty-four of the race's 54 laps were run under caution because of the weather.

"Every year we come here, we're not really looking forward to it because our car doesn't normally suit this track, but our guys did a great job, said Taylor, son of team owner Wayne Taylor. "I think that even in the `dry' we had a winning car."

Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas, the series' reigning DP class champions, finished second in the No. 01 TELMEX BMW/Riley and in the process took over the DP point lead.

The production-based GT (Grand Touring) class was won by Jeff Segal and Emil Assentato in the No. 69 FXDD Ferrari 458.

It was the first win for the new 458 model, which is debuting this year in Grand-Am competition. Segal and Assentato, who shared the 2010 GT class championship, took the 2012 GT point lead with the win.

 

Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press

IWC Schaffhausen Takes Off at SIHH

2012 is the year of the pilot’s watch at IWC. With five new models, the Top Gun collection establishes itself as an independent formation within the IWC Pilot’s Watch family. The year’s high-flyer is the Top Gun Miramar: a tribute to the place in California where the myth of the elite pilots was born. Find wallpaper images inside.

“For the new Top Gun Pilot’s Watches we drew on our long tradition of manufacturing unusual deck watches. In the 1940s, Pilot’s Watches made in Schaffhausen were widely used as so-called B watches for flight navigation,” explains IWC CEO Georges Kern.

Two Top gun Miramar models are offered: the three-hand Big Pilot’s Watch Top Gun Miramar and the Big Pilot’s Chronograph Top Gun Miramar, both measuring 48mm.

Kern continues: “Since the main priority for navigation is optimum legibility of the seconds and minutes, these two were often the only indicators shown on the outer ring; the hours would be relatively small and appeared on a central ring. This particular detail inspired IWC’s designers to display the hour circle and the chapter ring separately on the dials of the Big Pilot’s Watch Top Gun Miramar.”

Careful thought was given to the aesthetics. The gray ceramic case and the matte anthracite dial combines to produce a tough yet refined military look. Camouflage colors such as beige for the hands and chapter ring, together with green for the strap, heighten the effect.

The textile strap borrows from tough fabric webbing belts. It is complemented by two high-tech materials, typical for Top Gun, that were introduced to watchmaking by IWC as early as the 1980s: zirconium oxide for the case, along with titanium for the controls and the watch back.

Original Article by Mike Disher

The latest figures from the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (FHS)

The latest figures from the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (FHS) have revealed a rise in demand for bi-metallic watches following a sharp increase in export sales volumes.

The FHS said that, alongside the continued rise in demand for gold timepieces, bi-metallic watches “showed the same trend”. Demand has accentuated the overall performance of Swiss watch exports, the value of which increased 16% at the end of 2011.

In total, bi-metallic gold and steel watch exports increased 15.8%, with 117,500 timepieces exported in November last year with a value of $449 million USD.

In the UK the trend for bi-metallic watches also appears to be on the rise. WatchPro has spoken with a number of Swiss watch brands and retailers in the UK to find out how sales of mixed-metal timepieces have fared, and the news largely upholds the latest export figures.

The most popular styles at Citizen are two-tone watches with a combination of steel and rose gold plate, something that Daniel Brown, director at multiple watch and jeweler retailer Beaverbrooks has also noticed.

Brown said that there has been a rise in bi-metallic sales and while it has been hard to pin this to a particular brand, rose gold appears to be the metal of choice, teamed with steel or yellow gold.

Anthony Burten Shaw, retail director of Laing the Jeweler in Glasgow, stockiest of brands such as Audemars Piguet, Rolex, Cartier and Omega, concurs that there has been a rise in its bi-metallic watch sales. “Rose gold and steel is very popular and yellow gold and steel is getting strong again. Traditional styles are coming back,” said Burten Shaw.

Advertising campaigns such as that for Longines’ Dolce Vita steel and rose gold watch starring British actress Kate Winslet have also helped to raise the profile of bi-colored timepieces, pushing them back into the mainstream, and onto the public’s wrists.

A closer look at the entry- and mid-level bestsellers of online watch retailers such as the Watch Shop and TH Baker’s The Watch Hut reveal that some of its top timepieces are bi-metallic.

Amid the Watch Shop’s most popular men’s watches, a sporty looking bi-metallic Rotary with blue-colored bezel and dial is its best-selling two-tone timepiece, while watches by Michael Kors and Seiko are also high ranking.

For women, bi-metallic watches appear to be a little more popular, perhaps due to the accessibility of wearing both gold and steel simultaneously, making the watch easier to match with jeweler.

Demand from women is something that brand director and head of global strategy at Jaeger-LeCoultre, Zahra Kassim-Lakha, has also noticed. “We do see an increased demand of bi-metal watches, mostly for women,” she explained.

Meanwhile back at the retail end of the industry, Cottrills business watch manager Stephen Drake said demand for gold and steel timepieces has remained constant across its stores in Cheshire and Lancashire with women taking the helm.

“I would comment that this type of watch is more trend orientated as opposed to being influenced by price increases,” he said. “Ladies in the UK have finally taken up the mantle set by our more adventurous European counterparts and wearing a man-sized watch has become second nature. It also offers ladies a larger product portfolio to choose from.”

As the last figures from the FHS show, bi-metallic watches are an area of the market that can be tapped into from both the high-end Swiss watch brands – TAG Heuer and Rolex are behind some of the most classic bi-metallic watches – and also at the entry-level end of the scale, with fashionable timepieces.

Of the FHS figures, gold plated silver watches also enjoyed a boost at the end of 2011 with export figures for gold plated timepieces jumping an impressive 99.4% in November last year compared to 2010, with an export value of $6.38 million USD. Gold watches continued to enjoy high export figures, with a 24.3% year-on-year increase in export volumes in 2011 with a value of more than $628.9 million.

Article by Kathryn Bishop

Ferrari and watchmaker Hublot ink long-term deal

Saturday under cloudy Florentine skies, Ferrari president Luca Cordero di Montezemolo and Jean-Claude Biver, CEO of Hublot S.A., arrived at Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello, the practice track for Scuderia Ferrari, to make an announcement bright with promise: For the third time since its founding, Ferrari will enter into a long-term timepiece collaboration, this go-around with Hublot. The freshly inked five-year partnership technically commences in January, but both Montezemolo and Biver were almost giddy of Saturday's announcement and indicated that prototypes were under way.

 

Officially Hublot will be the “watch and timekeeper of Ferrari,” as well as the “timekeeper of Scuderia Ferrari,” the company's racing arm. In addition to an ongoing series of limited-edition wristwatches, Montezemolo indicated at the press conference that future Ferrari models could be fitted with Hublot dash clocks.

 

Hublot becomes the fourth luxury watchmaker granted the honor of adorning the iconic Ferrari prancing horse emblem, joining Girard Perregaux (Ferrari Collection 1994 to 2004), Panerai (“Ferrari engineered by Panerai” 2005-10) and Cabestan (2010 Scuderia Ferrari One, a very limited-edition, one-off project).

 

During a private interview with Biver prior to the press conference, he shed some light on the impetus for the project. He confided that is was neither him nor Montezemolo who came up with the idea for the partnership but rather his friend and Fiat scion Lapo Elkann--who is the manager of brand promotion at Fiat and who has also held positions at Ferrari and Maserati.

 

When asked to comment on what many in the watch industry (and consumers) perceive as Panerai's conspicuous failure as Ferrari's watch partner, Biver was candid: “I think their collection was too big. Which equates to a big investment, big inventory and ultimately big risk . . Hublot and Ferrari will start out slower.” He continued, that ultimately Panerai's lack of success was really the result of the collaboration's deficiency in “substance.” “It had no Ferrari DNA,” he said. “It was a marketing relationship, it was 100 percent Panerai DNA with a Ferrari logo on the dial.”

 

Biver and his team will debut their first Hublot Ferrari vision at the BaselWorld watch trade fair in mid-March 2012. Biver did hint during the press conference that the watch might incorporate a proprietary “Ferrari red” ceramic, though Montezemolo playfully reminded him to consider some of Ferrari's other historical colors, such as yellow. Hublot was one of the true innovators of incorporating industrial-grade ceramic in luxury timepieces. Pricing was not made available.

 

Saturday's announcement firmly establishes Hublot's position as the current automotive-inspired timepiece powerhouse. Less than two years ago, Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone named Hublot the official timepiece/timekeeper for Grand Prix racing. The partnership has yielded an astounding eight Hublot F1 timepieces: the F1 King Power Steel, the F1 King Power Zirconium, the F1 King Power Gold, the F1 King Power Ceramic, the King Power F1 Chronograph Tourbillion, the F1 King Power Red Magic Monza, the F1 King Power India and, most recently, the F1 King Power Suzuka, released last month during the activities surrounding Suzuka Grand Prix--no small accomplishment in less than 24 months.

 

The list of Hublot's automotive-related collaborations also includes British boutique-manufacturer Morgan Motor Co; the two produced the Hublot Aero Bang Morgan, a striking 100-piece limited-edition wristwatch whose skeleton dial incorporates the Morgan logo atop a grillelike piece.

 

But Hublot didn't stop there. Its collaborations extend to an ongoing series of timepieces produced in conjunction with, and to benefit, the Ayrton Senna Institute (Instituto Ayrton Senna), a charitable foundation created by the family of the late Brazilian F1 star driver Ayrton Senna after his fatal crash. IAS is run by Viviane Senna da Silva Lalli, Senna's sister and mother of F1 racer Bruno Senna Lalli.

 

When asked what Ferrari brings to Hublot and vice versa, Biver was direct in saying that both companies will be respective brand ambassadors for other. “Ferrari will be an ambassador for Hublot. Giving it [though its endorsement and partnership] exclusivity, performance and prestige.”

 

In turn he said that Hublot will be a true watch partner for Ferrari, a collaborator that will work with Ferrari's designers, and in keeping with its core philosophy of “the art of fusion," Hublot will incorporate unique Ferrari materials into the timepieces whenever possible.

By: Aaron Sigmond