“At the start of 2022, I am proud to present a new watch in our collection: the Sport Auto. A tribute piece to the extraordinary adventure that we experienced as young men.

As many of you are already aware, my friend François Servanin and I founded Maison LAURENT FERRIER in 2009. To better understand the beginning of this odyssey, we have to go back some forty years in time….

Let’s go back to 9 June 1979, on the Sarthe circuit, at Le Mans. François and I were about to start the iconic 24 Hours of Le Mans race. Although we had participated in this race together for a number of years, tension was still running high. We started 20th on the starting line. We were among the top of Group 5, thanks to my qualifying time of 3:55.080. It was 2 p.m.: the race was about to start. François took the decisive start, determined to impose our Porsche 935 Turbo in the standings.

After 24 hours of racing, 292 laps, 3,988.254 kilometres covered, a top speed of 312 km/h in the Mulsane straight, a rainy night but a dazzling sunrise, stress at its peak, 24 pit stops for various supplies, repairs and changes of driver, it was 10 June 1979, at 3 p.m. and François Trisconi, our teammate, finally made it across the finish line. We were 3rd overall, just behind a certain Paul Newman. A remarkable achievement for three amateur drivers like us!

The story continues in the paddocks where, in a state of elation, I offered a Nautilus to François, as a token of gratitude after this shared performance. By way of thanks and inspired by this gift, François, a born entrepreneur, then challenged me: ‘What if after this feat, we continued the adventure as a team by making our own watch?!’ Thirty years on, the dream became reality and Maison LAURENT FERRIER was born.

Today, more than forty years have passed since this exceptional podium, but not a single week goes by without us recalling this memory. It is also thanks to this that we designed the Sport Auto. We thought it would have been the ideal timepiece to wear during each of our races.”