Afew years ago I was lucky enough to visit Richard Mille at his home in Brittany where, in a series of elegantly converted stables, he keeps one of the most impressive collections of competition cars I have ever seen – including a ‘fleet’ of Formula 1 machines that includes several McLarens and a BRM V16.
During our conversation I asked him whether or not he would be attending that year’s Voiles de St Barth Regatta in the Caribbean, at which Mille’s business partner, Peter Harrison, was due to compete in a Maxi 72 yacht – complete with a set of Richard Mille-liveried sails that cost £500,000. Richard Mille looked at me with an expression of dismay before replying: “No, I don’t like sailing and I don’t like boats. I am a ground guy, a man of the earth, not of the water.”