New and Future F1 Watch Sponsors

Since the first days of motorsport, timing has been an essential part of the equation. There simply couldn’t be motorsports without the ability to time laps and sessions. Although in today’s era of racing analog timing has been replaced with computers, the strong ties between racing and timepieces are as strong now as they ever were.

My wife and I have always been very involved with sports cars and the connection between car people and watch people overlap heavily. It is impossible to go to a car meet and not see tons of interesting watches on the wrists of car enthusiasts. Cars and watches just go hand in hand and you don’t have to look very hard to find racing inspired timepieces.



Watch brands know just how strong this connection is and every year there are tons of new collaboration timepieces with various auto manufactures. Past the simple collaborations of just putting a logo on a watch, many watch brands even go the extra mile and sponsor manufacture’s racing teams. The holy grail of sponsorship is of course getting the ability to sponsor an F1 Team.

F1 is the pinnacle of motorsports and also one of the most watched sports on the planet. F1 cars are completely covered with sponsor’s logos, and with so many eyes on these cars, watch brands are willing to pay almost anything to have their logo displayed on a prominent location on the cars.



Going into the 2024 F1 season, many teams already have long established sponsorship deals with watch brands. These include Richard Mille with Ferrari and McLaren, IWC with Mercedes AMG, TAG Heuer with Red Bull and Girrard-Perregaux with Aston Martin.

Although there were no driver shakeups on the grid for 2024, that’s coming heavily in 2025, there were two new watch brands that associated themselves with F1 teams this year. We’re going to take a look at these two sponsorships and also look at some of the brands that we would just love to see step up and possibly sponsor teams in 2025.

The first brand that we’re going to look at that is new to the grid in 2024 is Tudor. I kind of saw this move by Tudor as a bit surprising seeing that Tudor is a “spin off” of Rolex and Rolex sponsors F1 as a whole. I guess it really shouldn’t be that much of a surprise since Tudor already sponsors some of Red Bulls other teams across various sports and even did a Pelagos FXD for the Alinghi Red Bull sailing team.

The first murmurs of Tudor sponsoring the Visa Cash App RB team came when racer Daniel Ricciardo showed off the new team’s racing suit and was spotted wearing a new blue dialed black ceramic Black Bay watch. Also the Tudor logo was prominent on his suit. It’s a bit interesting that Tudor hasn’t shown off or released this version of the Black Bay yet, but I guess it could be special for just the team.



Prior to being the Visa Cash App RB team, the team was named AlphaTauri and is Red Bull’s development team. AlphaTauri did have a sponsorship deal with Casio prior to the name change, but now having Tudor as their sponsor seems like a better fit given the other luxury watch brands found on the grid. We think the fit with Tudor is decent for the RB team, seeing the existing Red Bull sponsorships as well as their relationship to Rolex who is F1s main timekeeping sponsor. With Tudor primarily being known for their sports models, the fit is great as well. We do wish that Tudor would release a special edition watch to celebrate their new home in F1 like they did with the Pelagos FXD for Alinghi Red Bull racing. I guess this could come at Watches and Wonders though.

Now the second and last of the new watch sponsors for 2024 came as a real surprise to us. Prior to 2024, the French F1 team Alpine was sponsored by watch brand Bell & Ross. With the 2024 season came new sponsor H. Moser & Cie. To be honest we didn’t see this one coming at all. While Bell & Ross is known for their sports watches, especially those tied into aviation, Moser really isn’t a well known sports watch brand.



Moser is typically thought about for their beyond stunning dials and avant-garde styling. I would imagine their move into F1 sponsorship is to bolster and push their Streamliner series of integrated sports watches. Moser does offer two flyback chronographs in their Streamliner catalog, one being steel and one being a boutique exclusive in red gold, but I feel that a more accessible chronograph is probably waiting in the wings for watches and wonders to go along with their new sponsorship.

Although Moser sponsoring the Alpine team didn’t really make much sense to me at first, the more I start to think about it, the more it makes sense as a springboard for the brand to get more into the sports watch market. Alpine also did a one race sponsorship deal with one of my favorite streetwear brands Palace last year, so I guess Alpine is also open to doing something a bit different with their watch sponsor. Alpine just needs to get their cars going a little bit quicker than they did during the first race of the year.

Now the really fun part… which watch brands should enter into watch sponsorship for 2025. At the start of the 2024 season, three F1 teams did not have watch sponsorships in place. They are Williams, Haas and Kick Sauber (used to be Alfa Romeo). Prior to 2024, William was sponsored by Bremont and Kick Sauber was sponsored by Rebellion. The closest Haas had to a watch sponsorship was a former driver Romain Grosjean being affiliated with Richard Mille.

When you look at brands that should be sponsoring an F1 team and are currently not, one brand jumps out immediately and that is Hublot. Hublot’s use of super innovative materials and their heavy focus on chronographs just makes sense for F1. I will not include them on this list of brands I’d like to see sponsor an F1 team since they had a long running sponsorship deal with Ferrari which just ended when Ferrari ended up going with Richard Mille as their sponsor. I do feel it is a bit strange for Richard Mille to sponsor two teams, the other being McLaren, but their inclusion in F1 makes perfect sense.

With three teams having no watch sponsorship deals in place, let’s pick three watch brands that we’d love to see on the F1 grid sooner than later.

When you think of classic chronographs in the watch world, you instantly think of the Rolex Daytona and Tag Heuer Monaco. With Tag being the sponsor of Red Bull and Rolex being the sponsor of F1, these two brands are already well represented in the sport. Probably the next well known and respected chronograph is the Zenith El Primero.

In the last few years, Zenith has really seen a resurgence in popularity. If you look back in their history, Zenith was even picked to supply Rolex with the movement for the Daytona. Even today, Hublot picked Zenith to supply the movement for some of their non-in-house caliber watches. With the history of the fabled El Primero, Zenith’s heavy focus on sports watches and their new found popularity, Zenith is the perfect brand to be on the grid.



Zenith has a rather new line of DEFY watches that are crafted out of forged carbon and would imagine this would be a perfect starting point for a Zenith inspired F1 watch. Depending on which team Zenith would sponsor, the dial could have some interesting coloring to match the team colors. Also with Zenith using one of the fastest serial produced movements out there, the fit for F1 is just about perfect.

Another brand we’d love to see sponsor an F1 team would be Ulysse Nardin. Ulysse Nardin’s sister company Girard-Perregaux already sponsors the Aston Martin F1 team, so it should be a natural fit for Ulysse Nardin to sponsor a team as well.

Ulysse Nardin is known for its use for extremely high tech materials for their watch cases as well as in their movements. This includes the groundbreaking use of silicon for their hairspring and Carbonium for their cases. Watches like the Freak show just how inventive Ulysse Nardin can be when it comes to out of the box watch design.



For F1, having Ulysse Nardin create a watch crafted out of Carbonium that housed an advanced flyback of split second chronograph would just be an awesome addition to the history of F1 inspired watches. Ulysse Nardin already has chronograph watches in their Diver and Marine series and has made a split second chronograph in the past. If they could combine their high tech cases with a new complicated chronograph, I really think Ulysse Nardin could have an amazing racing watch on their hands.

Finally for a brand that just needs to be an F1 sponsor, we have Audemars Piguet. Throughout the 2000s Audemars Piguet had a host of F1 themed watches for both drivers and races they sponsored. Some of the highlights here are the limited edition Royal Oak Offshores they made for Juan Pablo Montoya, Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello. These watches were so far ahead of their time in both design and materials used for the watch. I’m completely unbiased though, my all time favorite watch is the titanium Montoya, which I actually do own as well ;)

As far as I know Audemars Piguet has never sponsored F1, just had drivers as ambassadors. With how popular AP has become over the last few years, nearly being a household name, now is the perfect time for Audemars Piguet to sponsor the sport. I’m actually not sure why AP isn’t a sponsor in F1, I’m guessing it either boils down to something that happened in the past between the brand and F1, or that the top teams all have fairly strong sponsorship deals in place.



As much as I’d love a modern reworking of the Montoya or Barrichello, I don’t think that would be the correct watch for Audemars Piguet’s F1 watch. If you look at IWC, they truly didn’t have a real drivers watch until the release of their Pilot’s Watch Performance Chronograph last year. Prior to that watch, IWC just used standard Pilot’s watches for their F1 watches. With the addition of the Performance Chronograph IWC added a true driver’s chronograph complete with a Tachymeter scale on it. For Audemars Piguet I feel the same should be done. I don’t think APs F1 watch would be in either the Code 11.59 or Royal Oak series, but rather in the Royal Oak Concept or Royal Oak Offshore lineup. If Audemars Piguet wanted to battle it out with Richard Mille, they could go nuts with the Concept and do something out of this world for an out of this world price tag… but I’d rather see something a little more down to earth done with the Offshore.

What I’m thinking is do an offshoot to the Offshore line like they did with the diver. Offer a simple chronograph in a titanium case and use the inner ring of the diver’s bezel to be the Tachymeter. If you look at the Montoya, Barrichello and Schumacher, all three already had this inner Tachymeter present. I’d also say craft the watch out of titanium for its durability and lighter weight. I guess if they could make these watches in platinum and rose gold to be throwbacks to the old limited edition trio of metals as well.

Well there you have it, our take on the two new watch sponsors in F1, along with three brands we’d love to see sponsor an F1 team sooner than later. I know the chances of my wishes for new F1 sponsors coming true are rather low, but it’s fun to dream.