A Partnership Of The Highest Performance

Driven by its universally recognized excellence, Rolex has built upon its own defining heritage in watchmaking to embrace the high performance of motorsport

- Keef Wong

Motorsports and watchmaking are united by a shared quest for split-second precision, an unwavering level of dependability and to continually push the limits of mechanical performance.

Building upon this parallel, Rolex supports the finest events in motor racing and encourages the global development of this high-performance sport. Based upon a long-standing association that spans back to the 1930s, this venture into innovation continues to foster excellence, and safeguards the heritage in both disciplines of watchmaking and motor racing.

The birth of this alliance can be traced back to the period where Sir Malcom Campbell set nine World Land Speed Records and broke the 300 mile-per-hour barrier while behind the wheel of Bluebird in 1935 with a Rolex on his wrist. Many of these legendary runs took place at Daytona Beach, an iconic venue that had earned its prestige over the decades.

It is no coincidence that Rolex has also partnered the Daytona International Speedway in the United States since the circuit opened in 1959 at Daytona Beach, Florida – the fastest speedway in the United States at the time. In 1963, Rolex launched the iconic Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph, and a few years later, Rolex added the name ‘Daytona’ to the dial of the iconic chronograph created for racing drivers to mark its connection with the speedway.

Towards Global Partnership

Significantly today, Rolex is a Global Partner and Official Timepiece of Formula 1®, the pinnacle of motor sport, as well as Title Sponsor of the season’s opening race, the FORMULA 1 ROLEX AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX. Formed in 2013, these partnerships ark the culmination of the brand’s history of close ties with motor racing, speed and cutting-edge technology. This technology used daily in Formula 1® is widely considered to be among the most advanced and precise in the world.