- Aston Martin drivers and senior management will wear Breitling watches
- Breitling CEO hopes deal will last for at least next three to five years
The Aston Martin Formula One team have agreed a multi-year deal with Breitling, naming the Swiss brand as their official watch partner.
As part of the partnership, Breitling will release a range of watches, beginning with the Navitimer B01 Chronograph 46 featuring Aston Martin branding. The Navitimer is historically linked to Formula One, having been associated with legendary drivers like Jim Clark, Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart.
Breitling replaces Girard-Perregaux as the official watch partner of the Silverstone-based team. The Swiss brand had been in partnership with Aston Martin since 2021.
“Our pursuit of a world championship demands partners who match our ambition,” said Lawrence Stroll, executive chairman of Aston Martin.
“Today, we’re proud to welcome Breitling to the team. Beyond a shared heritage, we are united by values that drive everything we do. The precision, craftmanship and engineering excellence we pursue at Aston Martin Aramco are lived and breathed by Breitling. We look forward to working together.”
First revealed at an exclusive media event in January, the goal of this partnership is to make a big impact in a crowded sponsorship landscape that features rival watch manufacturers like Tag Heuer, Richard Mille, IWC, Tudor and Hublot.
“I would hope if we had this conversation in a year, people would say the relationship between Aston Martin and Breitling is the one that activated the most, it was the deepest, the most well thought out, the most authentic,” said Jefferson Slack, managing director of commercial and marketing at Aston Martin, in response to a question from BlackBook Motorsport.
“We will be displaying the watches throughout our paddock club, we’ll have 13,000 or 14,000 guest visits of that in our paddock. Our drivers, our senior management [will wear the watches] and then [there is] content that we’ll create around that.”
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The team’s image will benefit from the luxury association with a high-end watch manufacturer, but Aston Martin are also looking for a more expansive collaboration.
“We don’t want to just put a sticker on a car, [say] what a wonderful two brands to be affiliated,” Slack said. “We really want to activate this. So I would add to that when you talk about the economic [impact], that’s part of the marketing of this that we’re really looking forward to – as a challenge as well to distinguish ourselves.”
This sentiment was also shared by Georges Kern, chief executive of Breitling.
“Obviously we’re not Aramco [title partner of Aston Martin], but I think we can add exactly what [Slack] said – image, visibility, also emotions through products,” he said.
“For [Aston Martin] as a Formula One team and as a company, it’s a set of the right sponsors and partners which brings the richness and the power to a brand.
“It’s like a planet with satellites and we are one of the satellites. Probably not the biggest one, but a beautiful one.”
This is part of a broader strategy for Breitling in sports, following its deal to become the official timepiece partner of the National Football League (NFL) last August. Kern shared that Breitling told the NFL during negotiations that “while we cannot pay the same amount of money [as a company like Visa] … we add something to the game”.
While the length of Breitling’s deal with Aston Martin remains undisclosed, Kern expressed his hope that the partnership will last “at least for the next three to five years minimum”.
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