Hitting the Apex

It’s been a huge few years for TAG Heuer. 

That’s largely down to the fact of its new role as the official timekeeper of Formula One, which, at last count, now attracts a global audience of more than 750 million people. As long-standing horophiles will know, it’s not the first occasion the brand has been charged with the burden of clocking the lap times of competitors in the world’s fastest ground sport.

It first did the job as “Heuer” from 1974 until 1979 and then, having become TAG Heuer in 1985, from 1992 to 2003. But the watch world has changed beyond measure since then, as has the real world in terms of the massive reach of the internet and social media.

According to Watchfinder & Co., 35 per cent of gen Z UK residents are likely to buy a luxury watch during the next 12 months. Worldwide, they are anticipated to have a staggering £353bn burning holes in their pockets, and one in 10 owns a watch in the £1,000–7,000 value bracket. More than half aspire to own at least one Rolex – but luckily for TAG Heuer, a healthy 39 per cent also see a TH as their next watch-buying goal.

This is where TAG Heuer’s inescapable presence at the 24 most prestigious race circuits in the world is set to pay off: following the start of the 2025 F1 season in Melbourne, Australia this past spring. After all, despite the widely held belief that the younger generation are considerably less interested in learning to drive or owning their own car than, say, the baby boomers of the past, they appear to be mad keen on Formula One.

At a forum staged by sports promoter CSM, the discussion focused on how F1 has radically re-invented itself and increased its cultural reach far beyond the typical fans of old – largely by capitalising on social media, fashion, music and film in order to appeal to the vital gen Z audience. One panel member, Greg Hall (the chief marketing officer of MoneyGram International), highlighted how the Netflix series Drive to Survive has attracted a whole new, far younger audience to F1 – many of whom are more interested in the individual characters who populate the sport (such as series star Guenther Steiner, the former team principal of MoneyGram Haas) rather than the teams they are employed by.

All that will be on the mind of TAG Heuer CEO Antoine Pin, who only took over the job of running LVMH’s most storied and vibrant watch brand last summer – just when the ink was settling on the luxury group’s F1 deal announced that autumn. According to Pin, he’s already hit the ground running.

“F1 is the perfect fit for us, not only because of our long history in motor racing,” he says, “but because the brand is unique in its capacity to encourage people to surpass themselves, to go beyond, not to ‘crack under pressure,’ as the famous advertising campaign says. These are exactly the things that F1 drivers do every time they go out on the track.”

As many QP readers will know, the job of “official timing partner” has been held by Rolex since 2013, and many observers were surprised by the announcement that it had relinquished what is undoubtedly a highly-coveted role to TAG Heuer. 

According to Pin, the brand is even better suited to the partnership than Rolex (which backs several other high-profile motorsport events, such as the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the Goodwood Revival, the Pebble Beach Concours and the Monterey Motorsports Reunion): “We are back to square one, back to the days when, for example, we were the timekeeper of Formula One and the timing partner first of Ferrari and then of McLaren.”
 

“What makes us different from Rolex is that we accept there is a notion of risk – but we are ready to compete and we are ready, if it happens, to lose. TAG Heuer represents the best tradition of wanting to compete as hard as possible with your opponent, but always respecting him or her.”

While motorsport undoubtedly remains a male-dominated arena, the times appear to be changing. Since the Formula One World Championship was inaugurated in 1950, just five female drivers have entered one or more Grand Prix, but only two have qualified and made it to the starting grid: Lella Lombardi (12 starts between 1974 and 1976) and Desiré Wilson, the only woman to win a Formula One race when she took the chequered flag at the 1980 British Aurora F1 Championship.

Currently the only woman driver with F1 connections is Jamie Chadwick, the former IndyCar racer who has worked as a development driver for Williams. In late 2022, Formula One Management announced the F1 Academy, a new, all-woman series that, this year, will support the regular F1 series with seven rounds of racing. TAG Heuer has its eye on the germ of gender diversification in Formula One and, as such, will undoubtedly be creating new lines of watches that combine a degree of femininity with classic “car watch” elements. 

What is inevitable is that this year will see TAG Heuer capitalising on the hugely valuable motorsport history of its two halo models: the classic Carrera driver’s watch that first appeared in 1963, and the avant-garde, square-cased Monaco that was originally launched in 1969 – the two models that feature in our photo shoot here.

While both have become inextricably linked with motor racing, they have achieved that status in very different ways.

Jack Heuer was inspired to create the Carrera after becoming enthralled with tales from the legendary Carrera Panamericana cross-Mexico road races, originally held between 1950 and 1954. Famously thrilling, dangerous and unforgiving, the race had been banned after five editions due to the mounting death toll – but almost a decade after it was last run, Heuer launched the watch named after it and it remained in the catalogue (in several different forms) right up until finally being dropped in the mid-1980s. Strong demand for its return from enthusiasts around the world, however, resulted in its revival in 1996 with a “classics” series based on the 1960s originals, complete with historic Lemania manual-wind movements.

The reborn Carrera proved to be a major success and the name has since been applied to more than 400 models of TAG Heuer watch, with its essential features even forming the basis of the Connected smartwatch launched in 2015. In 1988, meanwhile, La Carrera Panamericana was revived as a race for historic (but not strictly original) competition cars and, fittingly, TAG Heuer has been the event’s official timing partner since 1991.

Not until 2021, however, did the brand finally partner up with Porsche – despite both being known for products that bore the “Carrera” name.

The Monaco, meanwhile, found motorsport fame in a very different way. Introduced in 1969 in an attempt to woo a new type of sophisticated, affluent buyer to the Heuer brand, the world’s first waterproof square-cased watch was initially a flop.

But – as the well-worn story goes – it came to prominence two years later when Hollywood star Steve McQueen wore one for his role as racing driver Michael Delaney in the 1971 film Le Mans.

At the time, the Monaco’s on-screen appearance didn’t do much to boost its appeal to the general public and, by 1975, the watch that was intended to look to the future had already become a thing of the past. It remained in the corridors of history for the best part of 25 years until, as a re-structured TAG Heuer began to soar once more during the 1990s, a plan was hatched to re-introduce a “classics” series: with the Monaco as a key feature.

This arose because an eagle-eyed employee had discovered two photographs of McQueen (by then dead for nearly 20 years and elevated to almost saintly status) wearing a Monaco in the film. The decision was made to use the images in a print advertising campaign and at point-of-sale displays. As if by magic, just as the world was falling madly in love with all things retro and nostalgic (even those things that had flopped the first time around) the Monaco became the icon that it was originally intended to be.

So it is that the Carrera and Monaco models – both rooted in motorsport but with very different evolutionary stories – became the standard bearers of the TAG Heuer brand. While “traditional” models remain in the lineup and are still popular, plans have already been executed to keep them not only relevant, but fresh and interesting to the type of buyers whom modern-day F1 racing is succeeding in attracting.

The Carrera, for example, has already been bonded to an actor who could fairly be described as a 21st century Steve McQueen: Ryan Gosling. The TAG Heuer ambassador starred in a five-minute “action movie” created to mark both the Carrera’s 60th anniversary in 2023 and the arrival of the re-designed, vintage-inspired “glass box” models. Between YouTube and social media, the film instantly hit the intended bullseye of Gosling’s fanbase.

Both the Carrera and the Monaco have also been re-imagined for a more broad-minded generation, with dials in vibrant colours (TAG Heuer celebrated last year’s F1 round in Las Vegas with a Monaco featuring “hot pink” detailing). But according to Pin, there’s a whole lot more where that came from.

“We are currently looking at ways in which we can best leverage the partnership with Formula One, both for our benefit and for that of the organisation. LVMH has an expertise in exposing and enhancing global events, so it’s going to be exciting.”