Jammy glossy mag hack that I am, I’ve been the beneficiary of several well-lubricated nights out(-out) at The O2 courtesy of someone else’s expense account. Under the guise of a serious magazine editor, ahem, and purely in the name of journalistic research, you’ll understand, I’ve taken one for the team and made the Jubilee Line schlep to the Greenwich no-man’s land to endure performances by the likes of Jay-Z, Pete Tong and a spirited three-piece called Muse. Until recently, however, I’d never been to a DJ set, pyrotechnic display and rock concert rolled into one.

Back in February, the venue formerly known as the Millennium Dome hosted F1 75 Live, a two-hour, high-production spectacle that functioned as a launch party for Formula 1’s 75^th anniversary season. Tickets to the first-of-its-kind event, which saw all 10 teams unveil their 2025 liveries in a flurry of laser beams and dramatic voiceovers, went on sale in November and sold out within 45 minutes. On the night, ticketless fans kicked about outside, hoping to bag last-minute seats, or at least a glimpse of their racing heroes. Aston Martin, which revealed its car alongside a Bond-themed video starring Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll racing speedboats down the Thames, had snapped up every inch of advertising space at North Greenwich tube station.

Inside, acting as compère, a very much on-form Jack Whitehall ribbed a raft of celebrities, including Gordon Ramsay, Idris Elba and Machine Gun Kelly (who performed too, apparently, though I managed to miss that bit). There were drummers and singers and DJs and Q&As with the drivers. The energy in the crowd was more akin to a play-off final at Wembley. It was all a million miles from the stuffy grey image with which the sport has been associated for much of its 75 years. It was an event that never would have worked just a few seasons ago. But then Formula 1 transcended motor-racing some time back.

The commercialisation of the sport began in earnest in the ’70s. But if you’re looking to pinpoint when, exactly, Formula 1 started to morph into the business-sport behemoth it is today, 2017 is a good place to start. It was in that year that American entertainment investment group, Liberty Media, paid around £3.3 billion to acquire the Formula One Group from CVC Capital Partners (in 2006 CVC, owners of Breitling from 2017 to 2022, incidentally, had purchased the group from a family trust set up by Bernie Ecclestone in 1987).

Toto Wolff, CEO of Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1

IWC’s Big Pilot’s Watch Shock Absorber XPL Toto Wolff, £79,700

“There’s an opportunity to take F1 to another level,” said Liberty Media chairman, John Malone, at the time. “There’s an untapped digital market [that] F1 has only scratched the surface on.” Since then, Liberty Media has focused its efforts on modernising the sport and increasing fan engagement. It’s launched F1 TV, organised fan festivals around the world, implemented a strong social media strategy, and invested heavily in the American market, adding races in Miami and Las Vegas to the circuit. The group also facilitated the global Netflix smash-hit Drive to Survive. As the sport’s profile has risen, huge new corporate partners have signed up. American Express, Coca-Cola, Dell, Google and Virgin Hotels are all now involved in Formula 1 in some way. Watches, you may have noticed, have got in on the action, too.

I attended F1 75 Live as a guest of IWC Schaffhausen, which, since 2013, has acted as ‘Official Engineering Partner’ of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 team. Since then, the partnership has willed a hatful of special-edition watches, including an official Mercedes-AMG Petronas team timepiece in 2022 and, most recently, a watch in partnership with team CEO, Toto Wolff, designed to absorb the sort of G-forces to which F1 drivers are subjected while racing. Later this year, IWC will appear as a sponsor of the fictional APX GP racing team in F1, an Apple Original film starring Brad Pitt and co-produced by Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton lifted six of his recording-equalling seven World Championships with an IWC on his wrist – before spectacularly switching to Scuderia Ferrari (and Richard Mille) at the end of last season.

Indeed, the biggest cheers during F1 75 Live were reserved for Hamilton, making his first public appearance as a Ferrari driver, and Charles Leclerc, of whom the female contingent of the crowd proved particularly fond. Something to do with his fast-entry cornering, no doubt. Interestingly, according to audience measurement company Nielsen, around 41 per cent of F1 fans are now women, a statistic that bore out, roughly speaking, among the (largely well-heeled Home Counties) crowd in The O2.

Having joined the Ferrari stable, Hamilton swaps IWC for haute horologist Richard Mille, which has sponsored the McLaren F1 team since 2016 and replaced Hublot as the official timing partner of the Prancing Pony in 2021. The story of how Richard Mille got involved with Formula 1 in the first place is interesting. In 2004, after seeing an advert in a magazine, the agent of Felipe Massa called the company to see if the brand would be interested in sponsoring his driver. Recognising a publicity opportunity when he sees one, Mille, a marketing manager by background, agreed, going on to collaborate on watches with not just Massa, but fellow drivers Fernando Alonso, Charles Leclerc (before he joined Ferrari) and Mick Schumacher.

RM 43-01 Ferrari Tourbillon Split-Second Chronograph in carbon fibre, approx. £1,258,868

RM 43-01 Ferrari Tourbillon Split-Second Chronograph in titanium, approx. £1,072,369

Earlier this year, Hamilton and Leclerc fronted the campaign shots for Richard Mille’s new Ferrari watch (above). Two versions are available (below), one in titanium with red accents (favoured by Leclerc, according to a promotional video), the other in carbon TPT – Richard Mille’s own propriety carbon fibre – with yellow accents (Hamilton’s pick). The watches were a collaborative effort between engineers at Richard Mille and Ferrari, we’re told, and took two-and-a-half years to develop. Each watch is limited to 75 pieces. Both cost more than £1 million. Expect them all to sell out.

In one of the videos that went viral from F1 75 Live, in which Hamilton and Leclerc are caught playing chess on Leclerc’s phone, we’re unable to see which watch either driver is wearing. What you can make out, is a bucket of Moët & Chandon champagne, bottles of which littered every VIP table in The O2, signposting the biggest sponsorship deal of the season. Perhaps any season.

If you’ve been watching Formula 1, or playing the associated EA Sports videogame, since 2013 you’ll be familiar with the ubiquitous Rolex green on the hoardings and corners of every race circuit. You may presume it’s always been that way. Not so. Before Rolex, F1’s official timing partner was Hublot. During Hublot’s spell as title sponsor, which lasted from 2010 until 2012, Bernie Ecclestone, then owner of Formula One’s commercial rights, was mugged in London’s Knightsbridge while wearing one the brand’s watches.

Eighty years old at the time, the F1 boss sent a picture of his battered face to Hublot chief executive, Jean-Claude Biver, with a note: ‘See what people will do for a Hublot.’ Biver, another marketing maestro, ran the quote, under a picture of a black-eyed Ecclestone, as a full-page advertisement that appeared in the Financial Times and International Herald Tribune on 8 December 2010.

Bernie Ecclestone, who founded the Formula One Group in 1987, in the famous Hublot advert

Hublot CEO Ricardo Guadalupe with a Hublot-sponsored Ferrari

Before Hublot, from 1992 until 2003, Formula 1’s official timing partner was Tag Heuer – the dial name historically most associated with Formula 1. In October 2024, circling back to those champagne bottles in front of Hamilton and Leclerc, it was revealed that the brand would be resuming overall sponsorship rights, the watchmaker’s parent company, LVMH, having ousted Rolex in a deal widely reportedly to be worth $100 million a year for 10 years (it's thought Rolex initially signed up to pay $10 million a year, a figure that climbed to $50 million over the next decade). While Tag Heuer is thought to be fronting most of the cost, expect the presence of sister brands Louis Vuitton and Moët & Chandon on winner podiums from this season forward.

It was Tag Heuer, or more accurately the company’s precursor, Heuer, that in 1969 became the first watchmaker to sponsor a Formula 1 driver (Jo Siffert), as well as the first non-automotive brand to appear on a Formula One car (Siffert's Lotus). In 1971, Heuer struck a deal with Ferrari, making it the first watchmaker to sponsor an entire F1 team. Then, in 1986, a year after being acquired by the Techniques d'Avant Garde Group, and signing as the sponsor of McLaren F1 team, the company launched the quartz-powered Tag Heuer Formula 1 watch – a cheap, fibreglass timepiece that sold in the millions.

To mark its return to headline billing, the watchmaker, which will continue to sponsor the Oracle Red Bull Racing team while fulfilling its duties as overall timing partner, has reintroduced its Formula 1 timepiece. The original watches – the prices of which are currently creeping up on eBay – were used to launch Tag Heuer’s new name and logo. As per an in-depth interview with the watch’s designer in horologic Bible Hodinkee, the timepiece was first conceived as a colourful and fun dive watch in response to Casio’s battery-powered digital-display watches. ‘Formula 1’ was added towards the end of the development stage, after Tag Heuer had signed its deal with McLaren.

Now, as in the '80s, the nine references that make up the new collection represent Tag Heuer’s entry-level watches. Case sizes have been upped from 35mm to 38mm, hands have been sharpened, Super-LumiNova added, and a date window incorporated at three o’clock. It's now solar powered: just two minutes of exposure to light will power the watches for a day. The battery inside, says Tag Heuer, has a 15-year lifespan. Prices start at £1,650 (the originals cost around £105, or £280 in today’s money). With such a colossal marketing spend to recuperate, the company will be hoping to shift as many of the new watches as it did the old.  

Elsewhere in the paddock, there are other dial names. Bremont isn’t among them, the Henley-on-Thames watchmaker having sponsored the Williams team from 2021 until 2023. But, after entering the Formula 1 world in 2024, both Tudor and H. Moser & Cie return for the 2025 season, acting as timing partners of Visa Cash App Red Bull and BWT Alpine, respectively (Moser replaces Bell & Ross, which sponsored Alpine from 2016-2020, when the team was known as Renault Sport).

Also returning to the grid this year will be Girard-Perregaux, which has sponsored Aston Martin Aramco since 2021. Inspired by the elaborate process the car manufacturer uses to spray paint its cars, the watchmaker has come up with an even more complex method of achieving the iridescent dial on its new Laureato Chronograph Aston Martin Edition. The flickering face of the 42mm titanium timepiece is created by applying 15 ultrathin layers of paint, says a press release, and two trips to the furnace; a lighter shade of British racing green with extra shimmer. Flip the watch over, and the Aston Martin logo is embossed on a sapphire crystal caseback.

Girard-Perregaux's Laureato Chronograph Aston Martin Edition, £19,300

At an F1-themed Girard-Perregaux watch launch a couple of years ago, I clumsily suggested to an Aston Martin executive that the little-known watchmaker was surely benefitting more from a partnership with the household-name supercar manufacturer, than vice versa. Not so, according to the exec. “If you’ve got a Girard-Perregaux watch,” he corrected me, “you’ve already got a Rolex, a Cartier and a Breitling. Girard-Perregaux’s customers have a lot more money than ours.”

Which might explain why the relationship between Formula 1 and the watch world works both ways.  

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