A purple dial is not something you expect from IWC’s Pilot’s collection, yet that is precisely what the Swiss manufacturer has produced for its fourth Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team watch, released ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix in October.
The colour references Singapore’s national flower, the Vanda Miss Joaquim orchid, a hybrid first cultivated in 1893 and long adopted as a national emblem. IWC draws a parallel between the orchid’s complexity and the mechanical movement hidden beneath the watch’s clean dial. IWC has served as Official Engineering Partner to the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team since 2013, and the team watch series followed in 2022, with three other releases so far.
This fourth one, the Pilot’s Watch Chronograph 41 Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team (Ref. IW388121), continues the series’ established design language, with each watch in the collection using advanced materials and carries accents in the team’s PETRONAS green. Here, the green appears on the numerals, indices, and as a luminescent coating on the hands, cutting a sharp contrast against the saturated purple dial. A matching purple rubber strap completes the look, and IWC’s EasX-CHANGE system allows it to be swapped without tools.
The 41mm case is machined from Grade 5 titanium, the same high strength alloy used in Formula One components such as connecting rods, valves, and the Halo cockpit protection structure. Titanium weighs roughly half as much as steel and resists both corrosion and heat. Through the sapphire-glass case back, the IWC-manufactured 69385 calibre is visible, finished with Geneva stripes and circular graining. The movement itself is a column-wheel mechanical chronograph with a 46 hour power reserve. Elapsed minutes appear at 12 o’clock via IWC’s vertical subdial layout, a configuration used in their Pilot’s Chronographs for more than four decades.
As with previous team watches, this piece will be worn by mechanics, engineers, and other team staff both at the Marina Bay Street Circuit and at the team’s headquarters in Brackley, England. It is not a driver’s watch in the narrow sense, instead it belongs to the broader team. The Singapore Grand Prix holds a particular place in the Formula One calendar as the sport’s original night race, run under floodlights on the Marina Bay Street Circuit. The team is scheduled to complete 62 laps there in October.
IWC has also noted that the watch’s launch coincides with a new adidas collection for the team, centred on what the kit supplier describes as adaptive precision in Formula One engineering. For collectors, the purple dial represents a departure for the Pilot’s range, which I’m sure will be a pro and a con for different kinds of people. Whether it becomes a one race curiosity or a sign of what’s to come in the collection remains to be seen!
