Who owns Formula 1's clock now, and why it matters for your wrist

For twelve seasons the clock on every Formula 1 broadcast said Rolex. Since the start of 2025 it has said TAG Heuer. The change came with a ten-year global partnership between Formula 1 and LVMH, announced in October 2024 and reported to be worth as much as a billion dollars, which put three of the group’s houses on the grid at once: TAG Heuer as Official Timekeeper, Moët Hennessy on the podium, and Louis Vuitton making the trunks the trophies travel in.

What it has changed so far

The 2026 calendar is the second season of the deal and the first where the integration is total. The Monaco Grand Prix is now formally the Formula 1 Louis Vuitton Grand Prix de Monaco — the first time a fashion house has held title rights to the sport’s most famous race. LVMH built a paddock house of its own in Miami in May, bringing all three maisons under one roof. And TAG Heuer, which last held the timekeeping role from 1992 to 2003, is back at the start line with a decade of runway ahead of it.

Why it matters to collectors

Rolex’s twelve years as timekeeper coincided with the run-up in the Daytona that everyone in this trade lived through. The association was never causal, but it was not nothing either: a generation of new buyers learned the word Daytona from a podium. That platform now belongs to a brand whose motorsport chronographs — Monaco, Carrera, Formula 1 — have been undervalued on the secondary market for years relative to their history. A decade of Sunday-afternoon exposure to a global audience is exactly the sort of thing that changes that, slowly and then all at once.

Where it goes next

The season ends in Abu Dhabi in December, an hour up the road from us, and it will be the loudest LVMH weekend of the year. Expect limited editions timed to it. If you have a Monaco or a Carrera from the first timekeeping era sitting in a drawer, this is the moment to have it looked at — and if you want a modern Daytona, the fact that Rolex no longer needs the sport has done nothing at all to make one easier to find.