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The Reasons for the Rattrapante Chronograph’s Immense Complexity

2025年6月9日

The Reasons for the Rattrapante Chronograph’s Immense Complexity - Cortina Watch

Commonly known as the split-seconds chronograph, the rattrapante chronograph is an extraordinary creation of complexity, innovation and savoir-faire.

The rattrapante chronograph is the ultimate sports watch. It is built inherently to time events. Think of it as a mechanical stopwatch. Before delving into the fascinating world of the rattrapante chronograph, it is best to explain what a chronograph is and how they are separated into different types: ordinary, flyback and rattrapante.

How is the Rattrapante Chronograph Different from Other Chronographs?

The Reasons for the Rattrapante Chronograph’s Immense Complexity - Cortina Watch

The right-sided pushers and the crown of the TAG Heuer Monaco Split-Seconds Chronograph F1 (Credit: TAG Heuer)

The dial of a modern chronograph typically contains the standard hour and minute hands and 60-second subdial with a small running seconds hand converged to display the regular hour, minute and second, a central chronograph hand that records the elapsed time up to 60 seconds, a 30-minute subdial on which the small minute hand keeps tracks of the minutes consumed and must complete two revolutions before the small hour hand leaps forward on the hour subdial, to enable timing an event up to 12 hours. To the side of the case, the user encounters a couple of pushers at 2 and 4 o’clock.

Start, stop or reset, an ordinary chronograph can perform all of these functions through the activation of the pushers located on the right side of the case. The chronograph complication is useful even in an everyday setting. For example, to record the time it takes for a vehicle to get from point A to point B.

Pressing the 2 o’clock pusher once sends the central chronograph hand into motion. Press it again, timing is paused, and the elapsed time is displayed. Press it for the third time, timing is resumed from where it has stopped. To reset, press the 4 o’clock pusher. The central chronograph hand will return to zero. Pressing the 2 o’clock pusher once more will start the timing anew. In an ordinary chronograph, the complete sequence requires multiple actions.

On the other hand, the self-explanatory monopusher chronograph calls upon a single pusher performing start, stop and reset in a predetermined and streamlined sequence where upon the third press, the central chronograph hand returns to zero. Resumption of timing from where it was left off isn’t permitted.

The Reasons for the Rattrapante Chronograph’s Immense Complexity - Cortina Watch

H. Moser & Cie.’s Streamliner Flyback Chronograph Automatic is stylistically influenced by the rattrapante aesthetics, as evident in the two seconds hands: one's running seconds, another central chronograph (Credit: H. Moser & Cie.)

But what if there is no time to lose and one event starts immediately after another? For example, the second vehicle sets off once the first vehicle crosses the finish line. This is where the flyback chronograph comes in handy.

Thanks to the unique – and more complex mechanism – characteristic of the flyback chronograph, reset and restart are built into a single action and it requires no stopping or pausing. Similar to an ordinary chronograph, the 2 o’clock pusher activates the central chronograph hand and starts timing the event. But unlike the ordinary chronograph which requires the user to press the 2 o’clock pusher again to stop, the 4 o’clock pusher to reset and the 2 o’clock pusher for the third time to restart in order to time the second vehicle, all of which resulting in valuable seconds being lost, the flyback chronograph condenses the entire sequence into a single press of the 4 o’clock pusher, to return the central chronograph hand into the starting position in a blink of an eye in order to restart timing instantly, ensuring no second is unaccounted for.

As you can see, the ordinary chronograph and the flyback chronograph are intended for single events. In the context of motorsport, fans often love the excitement of duelling vehicles such as drag races and touge, where two cars go head-to-head. They accelerate off the starting line at identical times but often finish with one vehicle trailing the other – the difference between the victor and the loser. Such a competitive scenario is where the rattrapante chronograph shines as it can be applied to time two separate events simultaneously and record the margin between the two.

The Reasons for the Rattrapante Chronograph’s Immense Complexity - Cortina Watch

For the Premier B15 Duograph 42, Breitling transplants the typical 10 o'clock split-seconds pusher to the top of the crown (Credit: Breitling)

Pronounced rah-trah-pont, the French term rattrapante when translated to English means catch-up. The rattrapante chronograph is also widely known as the split-seconds chronograph, or less commonly, the double chronograph.

How Does a Rattrapante Chronograph Work?

In the realms of chronographs, the complexity of the rattrapante chronograph is a cut above the rest. It is among the most difficult to make in the universe of watchmaking. Unlike the ordinary and the flyback, the rattrapante chronograph possesses an additional central chronograph hand, called the split-seconds hand, which is typically painted in a different set of colours to provide greater clarity. Running above the regular central chronograph hand, the split-seconds hand is controlled independently by another pusher at 10 o’clock.

For example, when two vehicles set off side by side, the user can press the 2 o’clock pusher initially to start both the central chronograph hand and the split-seconds hand together. When one car crosses the finishing line, the user can press the 10 o’clock pusher to conclude timing for the first vehicle. This action brings the split-seconds hand to a halt, while the central chronograph hand, which so far has been travelling discreetly beneath the split-seconds hand, continues to surge ahead to time the trailing car. Subsequently, when the second car crosses the finishing line, the user can press the 2 o’clock pusher again to conclude the second event. This action brings the central chronograph hand – by extension both hands – to a standstill.

In this race, the use of the rattrapante chronograph negates the need to wear two ordinary chronographs that would have been needed to be synced and started simultaneously. It enables the documentation of two individual times using a single device.

The rattrapante chronograph can also be used to time an intermediate event during a race. For example, the duration for a race car speeding past a particular corner of a circuit. The split-seconds hand can be halted when the car enters a corner, while the central chronograph hand continues running to time the race. Once the car emerges from the corner, the difference in seconds between both hands indicates the time spent in cornering. The user can then press the 10 o’clock pusher to bring the split-seconds hand up to speed – to catch up – with the central chronograph hand, in preparation for the next intermediate stop. The 4 o’clock pusher helps reset both hands to zero.

While the rattrapante chronograph is seen as the apex of all chronographs, these days, it has been improved upon with the recent emergence of the rare double split-seconds and triple split-seconds chronographs, which can record intervals up to 12 hours, thanks to additional minute and hour hands in the subdials.

History of the Rattrapante Chronograph

The Reasons for the Rattrapante Chronograph’s Immense Complexity - Cortina Watch

The reconstructed version of the historical Nicolas Rieussec chronograph, or time writer, alongside Montblanc’s Star Legacy Nicolas Rieussec Chronograph (Credit: Montblanc)

The term chronograph originated from Greek with chrono as time and graph as write, inferred that it was for writing down the time as a record. The development of the chronograph took a non-linear path with many watchmakers and brands contributing to the innovations in stages over the past 200 years or so, with a distinctively equestrian flavour at the beginning and automotive most recently. History too has been rewritten more than once with new discoveries of old records.

In 1816, Louis Moinet shattered watchmaking precision standards. Christened Compteur de Tierces, the timer meant as an astronomical instrument holds the twin record as the world’s first chronograph and first high-frequency stopwatch. It set the bar high with the balance palpitating at 216,000 vibrations an hour. It also featured the stop, start and reset functions, with the central hand controlled by two buttons, evocative of a modern chronograph. It is believed that Moinet pioneered the reset function, which was patented by Adolphe Nicole in 1884. Prior to the discovery, Nicolas Mathieu Rieussec, whose legacy has been immortalised by Montblanc on a chronograph series, was thought to be the father of chronographs. Nevertheless, Rieussec was vital in developing the first marketable chronograph at the behest of King Louis XVIII in 1821, who was obsessed with horse racing and keen to know how long each race lasted. His maiden chronograph was massive by today’s standard and the size of a box, though it was still portable in that it could be transported from race to race.

In 1831, Joseph Thaddaeus Winnerl presented the world’s first pocket watch that could measure the duration of an event without losing the current time. With a seconds hand that could be halted and restarted without stopping the whole movement, his chronoscope was presented in Paris. One of his famous students was Ferdinand A. Lange, who grew under the master’s tutelage. Furthermore, Winnerl proceeded to refine his designs, culminating in the first split-seconds mechanism in 1838. Although the practicality of his invention was questioned as both hands couldn’t be zeroed, the device boasted two superposed seconds hands that could be stopped and synchronised separately.

Despite the early recognition, Nicole only succeeded in introducing his patented zero-reset heart cam in a watch case in 1862. The pocket watch mastered stop, start and reset while edging the rattrapante hand and the contemporary chronograph closer to reality.

Sometime around 1880, Auguste Baud – not to be confused with a famous Swiss painter who bore a similar name – came up with an unusual idea of implementing the entire chronograph and split-seconds mechanism on the caseback, as opposed to the dial side, to make the mechanism easier to adjust. As a result, the characteristic rattrapante clamp was now visibly integrated into the movement. He also added a minute counter to his chronograph.

The Reasons for the Rattrapante Chronograph’s Immense Complexity - Cortina Watch

The Duograph was presented in 1943 by Breitling, setting the stage for modern split-second chronographs and the brand’s own Premier collection (Credit: Breitling)

It is said that wrist-sized chronographs, albeit with pocket watch-derived movements, with rattrapante hands sprang up around 1912. The miniaturisation was gradual with components such as levers, springs and clamps shrank to acceptable dimensions. The first serialised basic movements with a split-seconds function were introduced in the 1940s. Production didn’t persist for long before they vanished from the market. A maker of the rattrapante chronograph and an initiator of the automatic chronograph movement, Breitling was instrumental in shaping the look of the modern chronograph. Willy Breitling patented the two-pusher chronograph in 1934 that we are familiar with today.

The rattrapante chronograph was resurrected and modernised in the aftermath of the quartz crisis around the 1980s and 1990s as Swiss watchmakers realised that it was their peerless know-how honed by decades of experience would aid them in their cause of recapturing the essence of mechanical watchmaking. In the face of adversity, Swiss watchmaking prevailed.

Applications of the Rattrapante Chronograph

Motorsport is only one of the many events the rattrapante chronograph can be used for. As mentioned, it can be deployed to compare the performance of two competing vehicles. On top of that, it can also be used to time the performance of the same vehicle across two sectors of the race track, providing the valuable information to the race driver to improve consistency across the circuit.

The rattrapante chronograph is also useful for athletics and swimming. For example, 200m sprinters can utilise the complication to compare their performances in the first and last 100 metres, or to measure the difference between team mates in their assigned segments in relay running.

The Reasons for the Rattrapante Chronograph’s Immense Complexity - Cortina Watch

TAG Heuer is a name synonymous with motorsport and the iconic Monaco collection joins the world of haute horlogerie with the Monaco Split Seconds Chronograph (Credit: TAG Heuer)

From race walking, to horse racing, to yachting, other competitive activities too can benefit from the rattrapante chronograph. This is especially true with watchmakers combining the rattrapante chronograph with a suite of complementary complications such as tachymeter to measure speed, or incorporated into dive watches to expand the usefulness of the split-seconds complication over and under water, and showcasing watchmaking prowess by weaving the rattrapante function with the perpetual calendar to unearth a grand complication.

The Rattrapante: A Mark of Horological Mastery

The rattrapante chronograph is considered among the most complex complications in watchmaking. On the surface, it is easy to see the reason why.

It is basically a unification of two stopwatches as the two – the split-seconds and the central chronograph – hands are stacked together. The 2 o’clock pusher propels two hands forward in concert, but they can be manipulated separately via additional dedicated pushers and be brought back together if desired.

A unique exercise like this requires a sophisticated movement that is equally hard to design and assemble, testing the limits of engineers, artisans and master watchmakers. It consumes more power – thus requiring a superior power reserve – and consists of a significant number of components. While complexity increases exponentially due to the technical demands of the rattrapante complication, the movement has to remain small in order to fit into the watch case. In manufacturing terms, the rattrapante complication is on par with minute repeaters and tourbillons.

Each maker has its own ways of executing the mechanism. The split-seconds pusher may be built into the crown, the order of the central chronograph and the split-seconds hands as well as the positions of the subdials may be changed, or the construct of the movement may be modular instead of integrated, all the while ensuring the movement is gorgeously finished and the operation silky smooth.

The Reasons for the Rattrapante Chronograph’s Immense Complexity - Cortina Watch

A minimalist expression, Parmigiani Fleurier’s Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante is neither a split-seconds chronograph nor a GMT watch in the traditional sense (Credit: Parmigiani Fleurier)

Although the rattrapante complication is mostly reserved for the chronograph, Parmigiani Fleurier has put a new spin on its interpretation of the rattrapante terminology with the Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante. A fine example of duality, the dual time watch is arrayed with a couple of overlapping hour hands. When activated, the white-gold hour hand leaps forward on an hourly increment, revealing a previously hidden rose gold hour hand that stays behind to indicate the home time. The jumping hour hand displays the local time. Both hour hands can be reined in and synced with the built-in pusher located on the crown. The Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante watch resembles a rattrapante chronograph in essence without being a chronograph.

More recently, Parmigiani Fleurier followed up the first act with the Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante. Though closer to the traditional rattrapante chronograph, the TONDA model prioritises the measurement of minutes. Parmigiani Fleurier elevates rattrapante and high watchmaking in a manner never before seen.

As the leading retailer of luxury watches in Asia, Cortina Watch houses an expansive range of rattrapante chronographs from a multitude of illustrious brands. Secure an appointment with us today and allow us the pleasure to find you the perfect watch.

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