Few brands can boast of such longstanding partnerships. This year, Chopard will be an official partner of the Mille Miglia for the thirtieth consecutive year. The brand’s co-president Karl-Friedrich Scheufele is a regular participant in the race, making it a point of honour to be one of the drivers in the Porsche 550 Spyder RS. The brand also has a second team participating this year, with Albert Carreras, son of the world-famous tenor José Carreras, and his friend Jordi Pascula behind the wheel. As title sponsor, Chopard traditionally brings out a watch dedicated to the event every year (see below).
Timekeeping has an important role in the race, since the aim is not to be the fastest but to be the closest possible to a reference time. In this regularity race, competitors need to stick as closely as possible to predetermined times for passing through different checkpoints along the 1,000-mile route from Brescia to Rome and back. Arriving just a minute too early or too late can incur penalty points. For average trials the differences are measured in seconds (with one penalty point per second) and in time trials the penalties are even calculated by the 1/100th of a second – beyond even the capacity of a Chopard mechanical chronograph to measure.
To win the Mille Miglia, therefore, total concentration is required throughout the four days of the race, which starts and finishes a day earlier than usual this year to allow for an all-night party in Brescia on Saturday 19th May. Each year, the distance of the race remains the same but the course varies. This year it will pass through the centre of Milan (where there will be a time control post in the square in front of the city’s cathedral) for the first time and make a stop at the Alfa Romeo museum. Some 450 cars, representing 72 different marques, will cross through some of Italy’s most beautiful scenery, passing through bucolic villages on the race that Enzo Ferrari described as a “travelling museum”.
Celebrating its 90th anniversary this year, the Mille Miglia is looking ahead to the next decade in the run-up to its centennial year. Its organisers, the automobile club of Brescia, have their sights set on growing their brand at international level. As a result, there will be two new events bearing the emblematic red arrow of the race this year: the “Coppa delle Alpi by 1000 Miglia”, which will cross the Alps and four different countries, and the “1000 Miglia Green”, which will be open to electric vehicles.
