Sir Lewis Hamilton loves making a fashion statement (or two) during a Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend… But his latest piece of wrist candy – an as-of-yet unreleased IWC Schaffhausen watch with an eye-catching case colour – is a particularly big flex.
As an IWC ambassador, Lewis Hamilton (as well as his Mercedes teammate George Russell) is in the enviable position of being able to wear whatever IWC watch he pleases – and IWC has often taken advantage of the ever-popular F1 driver’s profile to tease new watch releases by slapping them on his wrist.
Case in point: Lewis was seen heading to the Miami Grand Prix paddock yesterday wearing a previously unseen “Lake Tahoe” variant of the incredibly popular Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar TOP GUN. We’ve made a mockup of the watch below, as we haven’t got official images of it yet.
This hefty and complicated 46.2mm tool watch is easily Lewis’ favourite timepiece, with the seven-time World Champion regularly seen wearing the “Mojave Desert” (ref. IW503004) version of the model. But as much as we like the Mojave Desert, this new Lake Tahoe version is even more eye-catching… We really dig it.
This new model takes the stark white ceramic case and black-and-white colour scheme of the Pilot’s Watch Chronograph Top Gun Edition “Lake Tahoe” (ref. IW389105), which was released at Watches & Wonders Geneva last year, and applies it to the Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar.
One of the most complicated watches IWC produces, the Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar features displays for the date, day and month; a four-digit year indicator, and perpetual moon phase for both Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
Its in-house 52615 movement, a modern take on legendary watchmaker Kurt Klaus’ groundbreaking perpetual calendar movement, is one of IWC’s most precise and innovative movements. Not only can it be entirely set via the crown, but if kept running continuously, it won’t need a watchmaker’s intervention to change it for a whole century. It also manages this whilst also boasting a 168-hour (i.e. a 7-day) power reserve… That’s pretty damn impressive.
Beyond that, we just like the way it looks. It’s a huge watch, and with that white ceramic case and white rubber strap, there’s a lot of white going on – it’s hard to miss. It might just be the most baller watch IWC has ever come up with, from both an aesthetic as well as a technical perspective.
WATCH our guide to the rest of Lewis Hamilton’s impressive watch collection below.
This isn’t the first time Lewis has been spotted wearing an unreleased or one-off IWC whilst milling about the F1 paddock.
At the 2020 Austrian Grand Prix, Lewis debuted a one-off, fully blacked-out Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar made out of IWC’s proprietary Ceratanium alloy that was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, which Lewis prominently supported during the 2020 Formula 1 World Championship.
IWC would go on to release a very similar watch, the Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar TOP GUN Ceratanium (ref. IW503604) in 2021, but that model has grey indices while Lewis’ piece unique has completely blacked out indices.
UPDATE: IWC has finally confirmed the existence of the Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar TOP GUN Lake Tahoe (ref. IW503008). Find out more here.