Andy Devaney
TAG Heuer is kicking down the door on the next era of watchmaking, and it’s doing it with the swagger of a brand that’s been flirting with danger since the pit-lane days of Steve McQueen. The new TAG Heuer Monaco Split-Seconds Chronograph Air 1 isn’t just another bauble for collectors — it’s a full-throttle engineering experiment that proves the Swiss marque still knows how to rattle cages.
The brief was simple: no boundaries, no handbrakes, no playing it safe. What arrived is one of the most complex pieces TAG Heuer has ever built — a rattrapante chronograph wrapped inside an ultra-light, 85-gram, Grade-5 titanium shell sculpted using Selective Laser Melting (SLM), the same high-precision additive manufacturing you’d expect in aerospace or deep-tech labs, not at a watchmaker’s bench.
A Case Born From Lasers, Not Limits
Traditional cases are milled, carved and coaxed out of solid blocks. Not here. TAG Heuer’s LAB team borrowed SLM — essentially industrial-grade 3D metal printing — and pushed it into watchmaking territory. Layer after layer of titanium powder is fused by laser until the form emerges: a hollowed-out, aerodynamic structure that looks like it slipped straight out of a wind tunnel.
The result is a case with the muscle and geometry of a hypercar body panel. Titanium lattices cling to the mid-section; under the bezel, solid 2N yellow-gold lattices flash like engine grilles; a black DLC bezel frames everything with that familiar Monaco edge. Only 30 pieces will be made — each one its own engineering summit.
Inside sits the Calibre TH81-00, TAG Heuer’s lightest and most complex chronograph movement. Built with Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier, the high-frequency automatic engine beats at 36,000 vph, weighs just 30 grams, and carries a 65-hour reserve. It’s equipped with a rattrapante — the split-seconds complication built for timing two events at once, the sort of thing race engineers obsess over.
A Watch That Looks Like It Wants to Redline
From the front, the 41mm case reads like a machine ready to pounce. The translucent sapphire dial exposes the mechanics beneath: golden markers, golden chronograph hands, black-DLC pushers, and that unmistakable split-seconds pusher at 9 o’clock, milled from solid yellow gold as a nod to the Monaco’s original left-side crown.
The honeycomb-mesh structures and sharp edges give this piece the tension of a car idling at 12,000 rpm. And make no mistake — building it is no lazy Sunday. Programming the tools takes ten times longer than a standard Monaco Split-Seconds Chronograph, and manufacturing takes five times the usual effort.
A black rubber strap with alcantara inserts and a matching DLC-coated buckle keeps the look rooted in the cockpit rather than the cocktail bar.
TAG Heuer’s Legacy of Timing the Fast and the Fearless
TAG Heuer’s chronograph pedigree runs long and unapologetically loud. The brand invented the Mikrograph in 1916, the first stopwatch to crack 1/100th-second accuracy. It has timed motorsport’s most brutal arenas for generations, and today it still serves as Formula 1’s Official Timekeeper — fitting, as the Monaco Split-Seconds Chronograph Air 1 arrives in the same year TAG Heuer became title partner of the Formula 1 TAG Heuer Grand Prix de Monaco.
This new model follows recent Monaco innovations, including the 2024 debut of the first Monaco Split-Seconds Chronograph at Watches and Wonders Geneva and the follow-up TH-Titanium model. The Air 1 takes the idea and fires it into orbit.
Built to Wear, Built to Use
Despite the experimental engineering and race-car personality, the watch is designed to be worn daily. Readability comes first, ergonomics second, bravado third — classic TAG Heuer priorities in a package that pushes the limits without forgetting its purpose.
As TAG Heuer chief executive Antoine Pin puts it: “The TAG Heuer Monaco Split-Seconds Chronograph Air 1 is a watchmaking revolution,” said TAG Heuer chief executive Antoine Pin. “Think of it this way: thanks to SLM, a watch engineer has been able to deliver a watch designer’s wildest creation. The SLM manufacturing process, adapted by the TAG Heuer LAB, takes us into a new dimension, rewriting the received laws of case design.
And where better to do that than in the avant-garde Monaco, which in 1969 became the world’s first water-resistant square-cased automatic chronograph. The TAG Heuer Monaco Split-Seconds Chronograph Air 1 marks a new dawn for a true design icon and marks the beginning of a new series of conceptual timepieces involving innovative technologies for the brand.”
Well said — and entirely accurate. With the TAG Heuer Monaco Split-Seconds Chronograph Air 1, they haven’t just revived the brand’s avant-garde reputation. They’ve yanked it into the future and dared everyone else to keep up.
