ON THE WRIST: TAG Heuer Aquaracer Calibre S 'Fernando Alonso' Limited Edition

CAF7113.BA0803

TAG Heuer Boutique / Bicester Village, 21st February 2020

2007 should have been a spectacular year for the Vodofone McLaren Mercedes Formula 1 team and this should have been the watch that celebrated Fernando Alonso's third Driver's World Championship on the trot... except things didn't quite work out that way. Coming in to the team fresh from Renault and with a rookie teammate in Lewis Hamilton, Fernando felt that he had the upper hand and the team behind him... but, well, that whole situation imploded pretty quickly and the upshot of that was that against all the odds new Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonnen stole the championship away from the two McLaren drivers at the very last race. Ron Dennis must have been livid beyond words...

Wherever you stand on the rights and wrongs of that season, it's pretty clear that Ron was in a tough spot - on the one hand he had a two time World Champion who rightfully (let's be honest) expected to be top dog in the team, but on the other hand out of the blue he had the new Michael Schumacher to deal with; talk about dreams turning to nightmares - if nothing else the team's dramatic implosion went a long way towards vindicating Ferrari's somewhat controversial attitude towards their driver parity over the previous few years.

This then is the 2007 TAG Heuer Aquaracer Vodofone McLaren Mercedes 'Fernando Alonso' Limited Edition, and yes, believe it or not this is a brand new piece that you can buy today at the TAG Heuer Bicester Village store.

Truth be told, I thought we'd seen the last of these, but somehow the stock keeps popping up... is there a cupboard in La Chaux de Fonds that someone forgot about or something? I mean thirteen years is quite a long time to have stock of anything never mind a watch that is limited to 3500 pieces, then again last year Bicester had a ladies 2000 pass through their doors (which sold in no time incidentally).

By today's standards I guess 3500 pieces isn't really all that limited, but then I guess no one knew that Fernando's tenure with the McLaren team would be so brief and with his departure from the team at the end of the season the watch was probably a bit of a hard sell going forward. Now though, it's something of a novelty, especially in new condition, marking as it does one of the most controversial seasons in Formula 1 history.

The watch is on the conservative side size wise, with a diameter of 40.5mm; this aligned with a relatively slender thickness and a smooth, chamfered bezel makes the watch very wearable and one that will easily slip under the cuff of even the tightest shirt. It's a lovely colour, a mixture of two tones of silvery grey pimped with splashes of red on the chronograph hands and the tail end of the 1/100th of a second subdial.

If you are not aware of the Calibre S chronograph it really is worth checking out. In normal (time) use, the two subdials at the bottom of the dial indicate the date (here it is the 21st of the month). Once you press the crown in the three main hands reset themselves to the 12 position and the 'date' hands reset to '0'. Now you are in chronograph mode and the main hands count seconds, minutes and hours. The subdial hands stay at '0' until you stop the chronograph, then they indicate the 1/10th and 1/100th of a second readings. You can also switch between chronograph and time modes without stopping the stopwatch function. 

Most cronographs never really get much use, but this is one that you will play with every time you wear it; it never gets old seeing the hands spin around the dial and set themselves at '12' ready for you to press the top pusher... it's certainly a watch that will amaze your friends as they're almost certain to have never seen that particular trick before.

This CAF7113 comes on a bracelet but you can also get a fitted rubber strap for it too, which looks pretty cool. Price on the bracelet is £2010 (current list price £3095), call the store on 01869 249008 for details and availability.