Crafting a watch as loud and deftly designed as a Formula 1 car is a tall task, but this isn’t TAG Heuer’s first rodeo. Err, sorry… first race. Zoom zoom.

The Swiss luxury watchmaker has been in the business of turning out precision timepieces through its Formula 1 collection since the ‘80s, offering a range of models that, as one 1989 advert cleverly declared, are “guaranteed not to break down during high-speed knocks and scrapes.” 

This time around the track, TAG Heuer unveiled two new watches that each occupy a distinct visual lane while upholding the F1 of it all that makes TAG race watches so potent.

The first is part of the Formula 1 38mm Solargraph pastel series, which reinterprets classic design codes while tinkering with the precious tech hidden under the hood. 

Keeping the same Solargraph tech as last year's F1 models, the pastel range only needs two minutes of sun to stay powered all day (or 40 hours to stay charged for ten months), while the classic bidirectional bezel and Mercedes hour hand anchor it to the Formal 1 lineage. Releasing in fresh shades of beige, pink, blue, lavender, and green (with the latter two colorways encrusted with diamonds for a sophisticated spin), the Solargraph’s hue may be soft, but its performance is anything but quiet. 

Offered alongside this pretty-in-pastel option, the TAG Heuer Formula 1 Solargraph Indy 500 marks the 13th collaboration between the brand and Formula 1’s most iconic annual event, sometimes called “the greatest spectacle in racing.” 

This go-around, the dial and caseback are adorned with both the Indy 500 logo and a brick pattern that nods to the Yard of Bricks, a 36-inch strip of bricks that’s been located at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s finish line for over a century. The Solargraph Indy 500 comes fitted with the same solar tech that’ll keep the timepiece racing ahead all day — with this model needing only an hour to achieve a day’s charge — and looks smart in a deep black dial and a sandblasted steel case, calling to mind hot asphalt and gleaming surfaces of sleek racing machines. 

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TAG Heuer’s latest models live up to the Formula 1 collection’s long legacy, borne out of watchmaking’s most tumultuous era. As any horologist worth their salt will no doubt know, 1980s watchmaking was defined by the Great Quartz Crisis, when old-school mechanical watches got absolutely lapped by affordable Japanese quartz technology. 

Out of the dust came the TAG Heuer Formula 1 collection, born of ingenuity and a need to stay in the race: it merged elevated craftsmanship with accessible technology to create a range of watches featuring fiberglass-reinforced plastic cases and vibrant colorways, nodding to the fiberglass hues of the first Formula 1 cars. 

With limited releases for each model, these two TAG Heuer watches are set to reach collector status faster than a Formula 1 racer zips past the finish line.

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