The TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph Tourbillon x Senna

For a lot of Americans the world of Formula 1 is a little opaque; I probably would not have gotten interested in the sport if it weren’t for the involvement of some of the brands I’ve covered over the years, including IWC (which gave me a shot at driving in the simulator used for actual F1 drivers)  and TAG Heuer. The first F1 event I ever attended was the Monaco Grand Prix as a guest of TAG Heuer, which was a pretty mind-blowing experience in many respects (there is nothing like a gaggle of multimillion dollar yachts parked in Port Hercule to make you feel like an Egyptian peasant seeing the Pyramids for the first time). What really stayed with me though, was the sheer visceral bone-shaking power of the cars. I didn’t know what to expect going in but I certainly wasn’t expecting the noise and the vibrations in the air and ground on the starting grid, as if a hundred hand grenades were all going off at once, continuously.

As with watches, if you get caught up emotionally first then a technical education follows more naturally and in the intervening years, I have followed the sport if not with great regularity, then at least with a better understanding of why its fans find it fascinating. It sort of has everything – power, speed, and above all, drivers who represent in their training, reflexes, aggressiveness, and top physical condition (you have to be in very, very good shape to drive an F1 car) some of the most highly trained athletes in the history of sports.

This brings us to the history of the Brazilian F1 driver, Ayrton Senna, who is a national hero in Brazil and who at the time of his death at the age of 34 was widely considered one of the greatest drivers the sport had ever seen. During his career in F1, Senna won three world championships (in 1988, 1990, and 1991) and had 65 pole positions in a total of 161 races, with a grand total of 41 wins. The numbers alone don’t entire explain his popularity during his lifetime and continued fame after his death; he was a charismatic individual on and off the track, as well known for his competitive nature (which was very strong even by F1 driver standards) as for his sheer talent behind the wheel. And he’s still considered one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time.

Ayrton Senna wearing his TAG Heuer S/el, Ref. S25.706C

Senna began his relationship with TAG Heuer in 1988, when he joined the McLaren team (McLaren’s relationship with TAG Heuer began in 1985 and would continue until 2016, when TAG Heuer switched to a partnership with Red Bull Racing). He wore TAG Heuer watches, collaborated with them on a limited edition (only one of which was released during his lifetime) and appeared in TAG Heuer advertisements built around the tagline, “Don’t Crack Under Pressure.” The new Carrera Tourbillon Chronograph x Senna is now the third “Tribute To Ayrton Senna” watch in TAG Heuer’s catalog.

The TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph Tourbillon x Senna is a Senna-themed version of TAG Heuer’s Tourbillon Chronograph Extreme Sport. It’s a large watch, at 44mm in diameter with the size offset by the use of grade 2 titanium for the case. The tachymeter bezel is in forged carbon and the crown and pushers are grade 5 titanium; water resistance is 100 meters and of course, it’s a two pusher chronograph with tourbillon. The combination of a tourbillon with a chronograph is relatively rare in watchmaking largely thanks to the competing energy demands of the chronograph and the tourbillon. One of the most important factors to control in constructing a chronograph of any kind is making sure that switching on the chronograph doesn’t cause balance amplitude to drop. In a classic lateral clutch chronograph you can usually expect an amplitude drop of between 15º to 20º but this problem can be largely obviated by using a modern vertical clutch, which the Chrono Tourbillon x Senna does (along with a column wheel).

This is clearly a watch for F1 fans who remember what Senna meant to the sport, and what he meant to driver safety. The race in which he was killed – the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, had already killed Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger and Senna had a sense of impending doom, telling the FIA Chief Medical Officer (who had suggested to a distraught Senna that he retire and take up fishing) that he could not stop racing. After his death, the FIA immediately began improving track safety and the concrete barriers which had been responsible for both Ratzenberger’s and Senna’s deaths were among the first things to go.

This is also the year in which LVMH announced the beginning of a ten year partnership with Formula 1, It would have been exceedingly surprising if the announcement had not been followed by the release of a watch that both celebrates the beginning of the partnership, and which also commemorates one of the brand’s most important ambassadors (although TAG Heuer is not specifically announcing this watch in the context of the new partnership). The watch is a tribute more than anything else to a remarkable individual, and to one of the most historically important partnerships between a driver and a watch brand in F1 history.

The TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph Tourbillon x Senna: case, 44mm, grade 2 titanium with grade 5 titanium crown and pushers; forged carbon tachymeter bezel; sapphire crystals front and back; water resistance, 200M; 44mm x 15.01mm. Skeleton dial in black with blue and green flange and yellow chronograph hands (the three colors of the Brazilian flag). Movement, tourbillon chronograph cal. Th20-09. 500 piece limited edition; available November 2024. Price, CHF 37,000. See it at TAGHeuer.com. Check out the trailer for the new upcoming Netflix limited series, Senna, coming up November 29 on Netflix. 

Part of the income from the Senna Brand’s partnership is reverted to the Ayrton Senna Institute.