Tudor's Black Bay Chrono 'Carbon 25' Is Built for the Fast Lane
It that time of year again, when dyed-in-the-wool watch nerds like me start to revisit—and re-evaluate—the key launches of the year. In a bumper season for all manner of watches from daily beaters to luxury statements, it takes something special for a particular watch to rise through all the noise.
Case in point: Tudor’s carbon fiber Black Bay Chrono Carbon 25, launched to time with Miami’s F1 Grand Prix back in May. This was the second season of the Swiss watchmaker’s sponsorship of the Visa Cash App Racing Bulls F1 team, and the Carbon 25 was worn by its 2025 team drivers Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar.
Carbon composite, first used in a watch case as long ago as 1980, has become a familiar material on the sportier end of the watch industry for its modernist good looks. Tudor, famous for its steel watches, took a moment to get round to carbon. But for Tudor, carbon is not simply a decorative motif.
Carbon is one of the lightest materials available for watchcases, which means it’s a positive boon in the cockpit of an F1 car—so Tudor went deep on the material for the Carbon 25. The case, the tachymeter one-piece bezel, and the twin sub-registers on the dial are all rendered in carbon fiber. Even the strap, made in a composite leather and rubber (with a granular texture taken from F1 race tires), has carbon fiber end links, giving the watch a crisp, self-contained look that pushes the dial display to the fore. Pushers are in PVD finished titanium, while the crown is PVD finished steel.
On the design front, picking out team colors in watchmaking is fraught with the dangers of overdoing it (and many frequently do), yet the Carbon 25 does it all in a pleasingly subtle way. The dial features Visa Cash App Racing Bulls racing colors with a domed “racing white” dial accented with the team’s vibrant ocean blue. The display is topped off with Tudor’s iconic white snowflake hour hand—a much-loved brand fixture since it first appeared in the 1969 catalog. All that brightness leaps off the dark canvas of carbon, which makes reading the chronograph function quick and easy.
About that chronograph. The automatic manufacture chronograph caliber MT5813 that drives it is the result of an ongoing collaboration with Breitling, and derived from its B01 caliber. Certification of the disembodied movement as a chronometer (with a tolerance of minus four to plus six seconds a day) is by COSC, the independent Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres. But Tudor goes one step further, testing the fully assembled watch to minus two to plus four seconds a day, assuring that this is one of the most accurate chronometers at a competitive price. In other words: It’s a compelling piece of work, even if you prefer driving the speed limit to whipping around a racetrack.
esquire
