INTRODUCING: Omega Speedmaster Super Racing
Housed in one of Omega’s most iconic timepieces is a new game-changing balance spring for the brand and the Swatch Group.
Last week, Omega announced its latest technical innovation: the Spirate System, with a patent-pending balance spring design that offers highly precise adjustments. The new silicon balance spring is fitted in the Co-Axial Master Chronometer Calibre 9920, and its latest watch, the Speedmaster Super Racing, is the first to feature the Spirate System.
Omega first started using silicon hairsprings in 2008. Silicon is temperature- and shock-resistant, and amagnetic as well. This minimises after-sales service for one of the most common problems mechanical watches experience today: magnetised escapements that impact isochronism. The brand built on that five years later with a movement that’s highly resistant to magnetism with the Calibre 8508. That then led to an industry-standard certification, developed in conjunction with METAS as the Master Chronometer certificate, one of the most rigorous in the industry today.
Now, 10 years after Omega’s first anti-magnetic movement, it’s further enhanced its use of silicon to create a new spiral with an articulated structure and flexible bearings. This spiral can be adjusted very precisely via an eccentric adjustment mechanism on the balance bridge. Coupled with its silicon balance, it allows the movement to achieve an incredible performance of 0/+2 seconds a day. The spiral is made using Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE) technology. Omega’s logo is etched out on the articulated arm.
The Speedmaster Super Racing
The Spirate System is debuting on the Speedmaster Super Racing, Omega’s first release for 2023. Before the collection became synonymous with space travel and the Moon landing, it was marketed as a racing chronograph and associated with Omega’s official timekeeping of the Olympic Games.
The new Speedmaster Super Racing is a contemporary take on the original watch, inspired by a concept watch found in the Omega Museum. The dial has laser-cut hexagonal cutouts, a racing-style minute track, and a ceramic bezel with a yellow “grand feu” enamel tachymeter.
Two counters on the dial indicate the small seconds at 9 o’clock and a minute-and-hour totaliser at 3 o’clock. The small seconds hand is in a black-and-yellow racing-inspired stripe design, with a gradient yellow-black chronograph seconds hand and yellow totaliser hands. The hands and applied arrow hour markers are coated in an exclusive yellow Super-LumiNova.
The watch also commemorates the 10th anniversary of the Seamaster Aqua Terra >15,000 Gauss and Calibre 8508. That watch featured the same yellow hue that’s used on the Speedmaster Super Racing. A small date window at 6 o’clock adds a special touch to this milestone – a yellow ‘10’ in the Speedmaster font.
The Speedmaster Super Racing is housed in a stainless steel case with matching bracelet. In addition, it comes with an accompanying NATO strap made in recycled nylon with black and yellow stripes, in a black presentation box with a honeycomb pattern design and yellow stitching. A strap-changing tool is included as well.
The Spirate System
The Spirate System is important because it further closes the gap between mechanical and high-precision quartz movement performance. It’s an important benefit, ensuring reliability, precision, and technical innovation continue to reach new heights in mechanical watchmaking. And while there are other ways to precisely keep track of time today, having a great mechanical watch that can do the same takes watch collecting up a notch.
More importantly, since this is a patent belonging to the Swatch Group, it’s likely that, like other innovations, the Spirate System will be implemented in various brands from Breguet to Hamilton sometime in the future. The group has often shared innovations and developments across its brands. A highly precise Breguet tourbillon or a Blancpain caroussel that keeps time to a second-a-day precision? Yes, please.
More importantly, it lifts the Speedmaster up even further. Already known as the watch that saved the lives of the astronauts on Apollo 13, it’s now also one of the most precise watches on the market. The Calibre 9920 stands as one of the most durable movements around in terms of shock and magnetic resistance, and the most accurate.
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