TAG Heuer’s Homage to F1 Legend Ayrton Senna
Thirty years after his death in May 1994 during the San Marino Grand Prix, Brazilian Ayrton Senna remains the F1 driver’s F1 driver and a god to his fans. Winner of an epic 41 individual races and three F1 Championships, Senna was the poster boy for the sport at a time when modern technology in the cars was fast transforming the science of driving, er, fast. Having quit McLaren in 1993, Senna was in his first season for Williams that year and one of the first drivers to race in the brand-new blue, white, and yellow-liveried Williams FW16 cars.
At the end of last month, to mark the 30th anniversary of his death, TAG Heuer released the limited-edition Carrera Extreme Sport Chronograph x Senna, one of a line of Senna-inspired watches created by the brand, all of them snapped up by his legion of fans. This one, however, is something of a departure. First, it’s a skeleton executed in titanium and forged carbon. It’s also a tourbillon, elevating it far above the fray of run-of-the-mill racing chronographs. The watch is 44mm in diameter and driven by an in-house TH20-09 Caliber movement. On the dial, the accents echo Williams’s yellow, white, and blue color scheme. Considering the rubber strap and the fact that titanium and carbon fiber are as familiar in Formula 1 as they are in watchmaking, one could easily make the argument that this is the quintessential—albeit rarefied—racing watch.
TAG Heuer was a key sponsor of Williams, so Senna wore the brand’s chronographs on the track, specifically the Link chronograph. But his relationship to the brand was already established; he’d been wearing TAG Heuer well before that, when he joined McLaren in 1988. With a deep tie to racing that goes back to the late 1960s, when it was the first nonautomotive brand ever to get its logo on an F1 car, TAG Heuer’s legitimate connection to the sport is unquestioned. Which is why TAG Heuer also appears (in the form of that Link chrono from the ’90s) on the wrist of Brazilian actor Gabriel Leone in the six-part docudrama Senna, which launches on Netflix on 29 November .
You Might Also Like
