Description
TAG Heuer and Oracle Red Bull Racing have been tied together since 2016, and ten seasons later the Swiss brand has marked the anniversary in the most sensible place it could have chosen: the Formula 1, the cheapest watch in its catalogue and the one that actually carries the sport's name. The Formula 1 Solargraph x Oracle Red Bull Racing is a 38 mm sandblasted steel quartz watch dressed in the team's blue, red and yellow, priced at GBP 1,900 / USD 2,250 / EUR 2,200.
What makes it more than a sticker job is the movement. The TH50-00 Solargraph is a solar-charged quartz calibre that takes light through the dial, stores it in an accumulator rated for up to fifteen years of service, and runs for as long as ten months in total darkness on a full charge. One minute of direct sunlight buys roughly a day of running; ten seconds restarts a watch that has stopped.
TAG Heuer has sensibly kept the team branding off the dial. There is no Red Bull logo at six o'clock, no co-branded chapter ring — the partnership lives on the caseback and in the packaging, and the watch itself simply reads as a Formula 1 in a very good set of colours.
Design
The case is the familiar reissued Formula 1 shape — 38 mm across, 10.2 mm thick and 42 mm lug-to-lug — in sandblasted stainless steel, which keeps glare down and makes the colour work the loudest thing on the watch. The bidirectional bezel carries a blue TH-Polylight insert with a scalloped grip edge and a white 60-minute scale, echoing the mid-1980s originals that used coloured composite rather than aluminium or ceramic.
The dial is blue with a sunray brush, circled by a red minute track and crossed by a single yellow central seconds hand — the three team colours, each doing one job. Shield-shaped markers sit at 12, 9 and 6, the remaining indices are filled with Super-LumiNova, and the framed date window sits at three o'clock with a yellow surround. A flat sapphire crystal with anti-reflective treatment covers it. The solid steel screw-down caseback is engraved with both the TAG Heuer and Oracle Red Bull Racing logos over a chequered-flag pattern, and the watch arrives on a sandblasted three-row steel bracelet with a folding clasp, double safety pushers and an extension link.
Specifications
- Reference: WBY111F.BA0042
- Case diameter: 38 mm
- Case thickness: 10.2 mm
- Lug-to-lug: 42 mm
- Case material: sandblasted stainless steel
- Bezel: bidirectional, blue TH-Polylight insert with white 60-minute scale
- Crystal: flat sapphire with anti-reflective treatment
- Caseback: solid steel, screw-down, engraved with Oracle Red Bull Racing and TAG Heuer logos over a chequered-flag motif
- Water resistance: 100 m
- Dial: blue sunray-brushed, red minute track, yellow central seconds hand, framed date at 3 o'clock, white Super-LumiNova
- Movement: TAG Heuer calibre TH50-00 Solargraph, solar-powered quartz
- Functions: hours, minutes, seconds, date
- Power reserve: up to 10 months in complete darkness from a full charge; accumulator rated for up to 15 years
- Bracelet: sandblasted three-row stainless steel, folding clasp with double safety pushers and extension link
- Limited edition: special edition — no production number announced
- Price: GBP 1,900 / USD 2,250 / EUR 2,200
- Availability: available now through TAG Heuer retailers
What's Exciting
The interesting thing here is not the livery, it is what TAG Heuer is willing to put solar quartz into. Solargraph started life in the Aquaracer, a watch three times this price, and has now worked its way down to the entry point of the catalogue without being decontented. Ten months of autonomy in a drawer, a fifteen-year accumulator and no battery changes is a genuinely better ownership proposition than the ETA quartz that used to sit in this slot — and it costs the buyer nothing extra in thickness, since 10.2 mm on a 38 mm case is slimmer than most mechanical divers at this money.
The restraint is the other thing worth praising. Motorsport partnership watches usually arrive plastered in team identity; this one puts the logos where only the owner sees them and lets a blue sunray dial, a red minute track and one yellow hand carry the message. That is the difference between a watch built for a sponsorship deck and a watch built to be worn.
History
The Formula 1 arrived in 1986 as TAG Heuer's answer to the Swatch era: a cheap, bright, fibreglass-cased quartz sports watch that sold in enormous numbers and kept the Heuer name on wrists through the decade that nearly ended it. The line has been revived repeatedly since, most convincingly in 2025, when TAG Heuer brought back the 38 mm proportions, the scalloped composite bezel and the colour-first dials of the originals instead of the bloated versions that followed in the 2000s.
That revival has been run hard through collaborations — an Indianapolis 500 edition, an orange Zandvoort piece for the Dutch Grand Prix, a pastel Miami capsule — and this Oracle Red Bull Racing edition is the one that ties the collection back to TAG Heuer's actual paddock relationship. The partnership began in 2016; Max Verstappen took four drivers' titles with the team wearing the brand on the car, and 2026 has been a leaner season, with wins in Malaysia and Singapore rather than a championship. TAG Heuer is also now the official timekeeper of Formula 1 itself, which makes the Formula 1 model, finally, a watch with a literal claim to its own name.
