New TAG Heuer Formula 1 Chronograph Calibre 16

New TAG Heuer Formula 1 Chronograph Calibre 16 Watch Review

At LVMH Watch Week 2025, the Swiss avant-garde brand unveiled the new TAG Heuer Formula 1 Chronograph Calibre x Oracle Red Bull Racing. This lightweight chronograph is housed in a 44 mm Grade 2 titanium case and features a distinctive ‘checkered pattern’ dial. It’s joined with a plethora of other brightly coloured siblings, purposely intended to complement all paddock wear. Mark McArthur-Christie, a self-confessed Heuerphile, delves into TAG Heuer Formula 1 history before looking at these latest offerings to emanate from La Chaux-de-Fonds.

Reference: CBZ2085.FT8093

TAG Heuer Formula 1 history

Chances are, if you’re a certain age, your first experience of a ‘good’ watch was a TAG Heuer Formula 1. Launched in the late 1980s, just after TAG (Techniques d’Avant Garde) took control of Heuer, they were quite the departure for the firm. Although Heuer had experimented with quartz with their analogue Monin divers, Chronosplit digitals and the Senator ana-digis, these new models took a different direction. They were quartz, sure, but they ditched plain steel and PVD for bright coloured resin cases.

Reference: CBZ2082.FT8096

The first generation Formula 1 models, launched in 1986-7, were offered in just three options: a red resin case with a black bezel, a black case with a matching bezel and, if you were really rad, a red case with a green bezel and strap to match. Perhaps this was TAG Heuer testing the waters to see how buyers would perceive such a marked change in direction. After all, even just a couple of years earlier the firm was still relying on old staples like the 110.511 Monza with a calibre12 movement behind the dial.

It didn’t take TAG Heuer long to realise there was a ready market for the new watches and set to work with the colour charts. The 1987/8 range looked as though someone had opened the workshop door and thrown in a paintbox – there were bright blue and navy, yellow and cream cases and orange, grey, yellow and blue bezels.

TAG Heuer Formula 1 Chronograph – early references

Despite the avant-garde colours, there were still anchors to link the new range to the firm’s earlier models. For example, the ref. 371.513’s full luminous and red dial – soon to be a favourite – referenced the earlier ref. 980.032 full lume dial diving watches.

Reference: CBZ2086.FT8098

The quartz Formula 1 chronographs followed in 1989, sadly not with the three-handers’ bright resin cases, but still with red, blue and black bezels. (Surely there’s a potential new model range here, Heuer?)

Reference: CBZ2086.FT8098

The ‘Formula 1’ name wasn’t just marketing, either. These were watches that could legitimately claim time on racers’ wrists. At the 1991 Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka, where he took his third World Championship, Senna was wearing a ref. 472.513 F1 chronograph.

You can tell how well-made and durable these early Formula 1 chronographs were simply by seeing how many are still in existence today. A stroll around pretty much any pits or parc fermé is guaranteed to turn up at least a couple, albeit they’ll probably be scratched, bashed and coated in oil.

Reference: CBZ2084.FT8097

TAG Heuer Calibre 16

Now TAG Heuer has launched a significantly updated Formula 1 collection – five new interpretations, including one in collaboration with its longtime partner, Oracle Red Bull Racing.  The colours are still there – blue, yellow and red for Red Bull, black and lime green, black and electric blue, red and black and a proper F1-style black and red with a bright red strap. There’s still the same irreverence, too, but the quartz movements have gone. Now you get an automatic Calibre 16 – pretty much as indestructible as a quartz but rather more attractive.

Reference: CBZ2084.FT8097

The cam-actuated Calibre 16 has been around for a while. It’s a tried and tested and a staple of the brand. Beating at a solid 28,800 vph (4 Hz), it’s 30 mm in diameter (so it fits easily behind the closed back of 44 mm case), runs 25 jewelled bearings and won’t need winding for 42 hours at a go. There’s Heuer history here too with the movement’s oscillating pinion, invented and patented by Edouard Heuer in 1887, still doing duty when you start and stop the chronograph. It’s a pinion with a gear at both ends, one constantly running with the movement and the other coming into play with the press of the start/stop pusher.

TAG Heuer Formula 1 Chronograph collection – Grade 2 titanium cases

The case material is a little more up-to-date; it’s cut from Grade 2 titanium – around 40% lighter than steel and particularly corrosion resistant – with a fixed tachymeter aluminium bezel that’s DLC-treated. The pushers and screw-down crown are DLC Grade 2 titanium too. The whole case and its components are sandblasted to cut glare.

Reference: CBZ2085.FT8093

TAG Heuer Formula 1 Chronograph collection – dial detail

With all this grey and PVD metal going on, you might think things were a little dull. Not so – the Formula 1 heritage comes out with a coloured band between the bezel and case front and the edge of the crown.  This – on each watch – matches the colour running around the dial edge and the chrono second, minute and hour counters. It’s enough to add interest without tipping over into garish.

Reference: CBZ2085.FT8093

TAG Heuer’s design department has got the use of colour on the dial right, too. In fine Heuer tradition, it all makes sense. If it’s chronograph-related (so the central chrono seconds and the chrono minutes and hours subdials), it’s coloured to stand out. If it’s time-related, it’s plated and polished and, for the hour and minute hands, lined with Super-LumiNova in white that emits a green glow in low-light conditions.

Reference: CBZ2085.FT8093

TAG Heuer Formula 1 Chronograph x Oracle Red Bull Racing

The Red Bull watch has, as you’d expect, a bit more pizzazz going on. The blue opalin dial, rather than a plain background, gets a chessboard pattern, with the subdials having their tracks picked out in grey and red. Here, the chrono seconds is yellow, but the hour and minute counter hands are coated red – as is the running seconds at 9. Monochromatic Red Bull branding is repeated on the caseback with more chessboard patterning. TAG Heuer has always produced interesting casebacks (niche comment, I realise) and these watches are no different.

Reference: CBZ2080.FT8091

You won’t get a bracelet with any of these Formula 1 models (at least, not yet), but that’s not a reason to be disappointed. The heavy-duty rubber straps all repeat the colour of the chronograph hand specific to the selected mode. The reverse of the strap bears the TAG Heuer shield, while the edge is enlivened with a flash of colour.

TAG Heuer Formula 1 Chronograph x 44 mm

Over the years, the TAG Heuer Formula 1 chronographs have, like so many of us, put on a bit of weight. Starting out at 38 mm, they’ve slowly bulked up to reach their new 44 mm case diameter. For the smaller-wristed, it’s a bit of a trade-off; the larger the watch the more legible it is (reading an original Formula 1 chrono is a little challenging for anyone over 30), but conversely the more reluctant it may be to fit under a sleeve. It feels as though 44 mm is a good balance of legibility and sleevability (you heard it here at Escapement first) and the integrated lugs should help too.

Reference: CBZ2085.FT8093

TAG Heuer Formula 1 Chronograph collection – closing remarks

With these new watches, TAG Heuer has done what they do so well – designed and built something new but with a clear link to its own rich heritage. It’ll be interesting to see how many follow their forebears and are still doing duty in racing pits and paddocks in 40 years’ time.

Further reading

https://www.tagheuer.com/

Technical specifications

• Model: TAG Heuer Formula 1 Chronograph x Oracle Red Bull Racing
• Reference: CBZ2080.FT8091 – blue opaline dial with checkered pattern and grade 2 titanium case (Oracle Red Bull Racing)
• Case: diameter 44 mm, water resistance 10 ATM (100 metres), Glassbox sapphire crystal to front, exhibition caseback.
• Functions: hours, minutes, seconds, date, chronograph
• Movement: Caliber 16 automatic, frequency 28,800 vph (4 Hz)
• Strap: colour-coordinating rubber strap paired with a pin buckle.
• Price: CBZ2080.FT8091 – £4,750 (RRP as of 21.1.2025)

• Model: TAG Heuer Formula 1 Chronograph Calibre 16
• Reference: CBZ2082.FT8096 – black opaline dial with red lacquered track and DLC grade 2 titanium case
• Reference: CBZ2085.FT8093 – black opaline dial with red lacquered track and black DLC grade 2 titanium case
• Reference: CBZ2084.FT8097 – black opaline dial with blue lacquered track and black DLC grade 2 titanium case
• Reference: CBZ2086.FT8098 – black opaline dial with yellow lacquered track and black DLC grade 2 titanium case
• Case: diameter 44 mm, water resistance 10 ATM (100 metres), Glassbox sapphire crystal to front, exhibition caseback.
• Functions: hours, minutes, seconds, date, chronograph
• Movement: Caliber 16 automatic, frequency 28,800 vph (4 Hz)
• Strap: colour-coordinating rubber strap paired with a pin buckle.
• Price: CBS2214.FC6567 – £4,300 (RRP as of 21.1.2025)
• Price: CBZ2082.FT8096 – £4,100 (RRP as of 21.1.2025)
• Price: CBZ2085.FT8093 – £4,300 (RRP as of 21.1.2025)
• Price: CBZ2084.FT8097 – £4,300 (RRP as of 21.1.2025)
• Price: CBZ2086.FT8098 – £4,300 (RRP as of 21.1.2025)