After completing two races to start the 2025 season, the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula 1™ Team was second in the constructors’ championship and third in the drivers’ championship. “As a racing team, it’s back to what we love in sport – and that’s the stopwatch,” Toto Wolff , CEO and team principal of the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula 1™ Team said in an interview for the Netflix Formula 1: Drive to Survive series.
For drivers and team executives, life in the fast lane – on and off track – means adopting a fighter pilot mentality, staying fit and focused, and perfecting tactical manoeuvres to hold a winning position. “In motor racing, the absolute truth of the stopwatch will tell you if you’ve done a good enough job or not. I like the honesty of it,” he said.
Formula 1™ subjects drivers to punishing physical forces within the cockpit, and emotions run equally high in the pit lane. During peak race intensity, Toto wore a prototype of the IWC Big Pilot’s Watch Shock Absorber XPL, which is now released in his honour as a limited edition of 100 pieces. The Big Pilot’s Watch Shock Absorber XPL Toto Wolff x Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula 1™ Team combines the Swiss luxury watch manufacturer’s SPRIN-g PROTECT®shock absorber system with a technical design inspired by the team’s black and PETRONAS green colour scheme. This watch mirrors the resilience demanded of both drivers and team principals.
That spring, which guards the watch’s insides against the jolts drivers get from serious impacts, has been given a coat of the team’s signature green Super-LumiNova® and glows in the dark. The patented SPRIN-g PROTECT® shock absorption system came out of IWC’s XPL engineering division and was first seen in the 2021 Big Pilot’s Watch Shock Absorber XPL in 2021. For the non-technically minded, think of it as a springy cradle for the watch movement. When the watch takes a hit, that spring takes the brunt, not the delicate workings inside. IWC has shaped it to spread the stress evenly, and made it from bulk metallic glass. Thanks to some seriously clever manufacturing, it’s more elastic than your typical crystalline metals.
The Big Pilot’s Watch Shock Absorber XPL Toto Wolff x Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula 1™ Team is cased in Ceratanium®, IWC’s proprietary blend of titanium and ceramic. That means it’s light and tough like titanium, but hard like ceramic. The crown is in the same material.
The dial has a grainy, technical look, stamped right into the brass. And the hands are black, triangular, and glow around the edges, too. The minute scale looks like it’s floating.
Inside, the IWC-manufactured 32101 calibre powers the watch – a double pawl automatic with a five-day power reserve.
Everything’s blacked out to match the watch’s look, but you can see all the action through the tinted sapphire glass back, complete with Toto’s signature. It comes on an integrated green rubber strap, and there’s a black one in the box if you want a change.
