AS A die-hard Formula 1 fan as well as watch lover, it’s easy to take for granted just how intertwined the world’s premier motorsport and fine mechanical watchmaking are. However, that close relationship was particularly underscored at this year’s Watches and Wonders in Geneva. Thanks to the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix (due to the war in Iran), the 2026 Formula 1 World Championship found itself experiencing an unexpected early-season break. The upshot? We saw even more F1 personalities in Geneva than usual, with Mercedes driver George Russell and Alpine driver Pierre Gasly both seen mingling in the halls of Palexpo.

All images courtesy of TAG Heuer

Another big name in the sport that was at the fair was Laurent Mekies, the team principal of Oracle Red Bull Racing (to use its full name). Indeed, Red Bull took centre stage at Watches and Wonders, with the team’s 2026 car, the RB22, suspended in front of TAG Heuer’s booth, backlit by a floor-to-ceiling photo of four-time World Champion, Max Verstappen.

Mekies, for his part, was clearly getting a kick out of being at Watches and Wonders, joking: “It’s my first time here, because normally, there’s a race on… So, with this unusual break, at least we get to enjoy some watches!”

Many F1 insiders would consider the role of Red Bull team principal to be one of the most challenging in the sport. Despite its relatively short history, Red Bull has become one of the most successful F1 teams of all time, having secured 6 Constructors’ Championships, 8 Drivers’ Championships and 130 race victories, as of publishing. Mekies took the reins at Red Bull halfway through last year’s season, replacing long-time team boss Christian Horner, on the eve of one of the biggest regulations changes in the sport’s history. No pressure.

Yet Mekies seems to be handling that pressure and has instigated a noticeably more positive, less cut-throat culture at the team. For the affable Frenchman and long-time Red Bull man, his approach to success in Formula 1 is simple: hire well, and look after your team.

“Red Bull Racing is 2,000 people right now, and that’s chassis plus power unit, so that gives you the size of the boat. And so what do you do as a management team? The only thing we can do is make sure we get the right people. We create the right working environment for them, the right team culture, and then let their talent express itself,” Mekies explains.

If you’re not familiar with Formula 1, you might think the biggest challenge in the sport is, well, winning races. But there’s also the logistical challenge of shipping millions of dollars worth of race cars and equipment – plus hundreds of staff – all around the world. The 2026 Formula 1 World Championship, as it stands, will see 22 races across 19 countries, 5 different continents and almost as many time zones.

“The team is an incredible logistical machine,” Mekies says.

“To share a small detail that maybe is quite good for fans: mainly for sustainability reasons, we tend to send by sea everything that doesn’t have to be sent by plane. Now, if you think about that and look at the calendar, you might say, ‘How are these guys going to bring everything from race to race?’ So, effectively, if you come to a Formula 1 race and you look at everything that’s in the garage, pretty much everything you see, we build 7 kits of it, and they are on different ships, criss-crossing the globe to cover 24 races.”

With all that in mind, accurate timekeeping is paramount, which is why Red Bull Racing’s relationship with TAG Heuer, which marks a decade this year, is particularly meaningful to Mekies and his team.

“As far as Red Bull Racing is concerned, our only brief is to win… Everything we do is set up with that simple target in mind, and to win means having better performance than the competition. And if you want better performance than the competition, you chase performance 365 days a year, nights, weekends… And that’s what we found in TAG Heuer,” he says.

“If you go and visit their manufacture, if you go on and look at their products, you see that they are as obsessed with performance as we are. They are actually doing very similar things to us: they are chasing technology, and they have to take risks. Engineering, materials, technology, software, algorithms… That’s what they do every day. That’s what we do every day.”

There’s a natural through-line here when you consider what TAG Heuer unveiled at Watches and Wonders this year: the Monaco Evergraph, which represents a paradigm shift for mechanical chronograph movements with its compliant bistable actuator and is a killer example of out-of-the-box thinking in watchmaking.

If I’m drawing a very long bow, there’s also a nice through-line with the Evergraph’s TH-Carbonspring and the swathes of carbon fibre used in a Red Bull F1 car…

For Mekies specifically, the relationship with TAG Heuer is especially meaningful as a watch aficionado and life-long Formula 1 fan.

“As a Formula 1 fan, you get completely sucked into that watchmaking link with the sport. At least for me, I certainly did, as a kid. I compare wearing a watch to a Formula 1 driver’s helmet: you put your watch on, and you feel as strong as a driver does when he puts his helmet on. It’s also a way of getting a piece of Formula 1 that feels a bit more accessible to most. It’s the most complex sport in the world with unbelievable technology… [so] wearing the watches is sort of getting a small piece of that on the wrist.”

Mekies was clearly pretty happy to be in Geneva with us – taking some time out of his hectic schedule to slow down and look at some nice watches – but he was also quick to emphasise just how proud he is to be leading Red Bull, as well as how proud he is to represent TAG Heuer – a brand worn by F1 heroes like Ayrton Senna.

“You feel honoured, you feel privileged. You pinch yourself in the same way that I pinch myself every single race when I cross the pit lane, and I go and sit on the pit wall… That’s the best seat in the house! It’s the same feeling coming here, and you pinch yourself, and you say, yes, this is all part of this sport’s history that you are in love with. And now, somehow, you get paid to live your passion!”

Lastly: we put it to Mekies that other F1 team bosses, like Mercedes’ Toto Wolff, have received their own signature watch designs… So what would a Laurent Mekies watch look like? He had a modest answer:

“So, Laurent Mekies doesn’t matter. But we are brainstorming together. Obviously, there’s a dedicated watch for Oracle Red Bull Racing every year, so we are brainstorming together to see which technology barrier we will break together in the future when trying to join forces. So it’s not an individual matter, but it’s a team joining forces matter, and you will see the results soon.”

Hopefully, the wait won’t be as agonising as the wait between the Japanese and Miami Grands Prix was for F1 fans this year, no matter how many nice watches come in between…

This story first appeared on Hodinkee Australia

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