What defines a racing chronograph? Don’t worry, it’s not a trick question. You could say, well, the chronograph as it’s in the name. But a pulsometer, other than a pulse racing now and then, doesn’t fit the bill. Nor does a military-style monopusher or even a rather large cross-section of bi- and tricompax stopwatches. No, what actually defines a racing chronograph is the bezel – specifically, the tachymeter bezel.
You’re almost guaranteed to be familiar with tachymeter bezels if you’re reading these pages, but just to take things back to horology 101, a tachymeter is a scale that allows you to gauge how fast something is going. You do that by timing something – let’s say for argument’s sake, a classic racing car – as it travels a set distance. Start the chronograph when the car starts, stop it when it hits your set distance, let’s say a mile. The tachymeter scale then converts the stopped time into miles per hour. Nice and simple.
The problem however is that set distance. It generally needs to be a mile or kilometre, otherwise you need to do a bit more mental maths (65 times 1.2 miles, for example), but no real-life racetrack is exactly a mile long. The solution then is to have a marker on the track at precisely the mile mark, which gets you the average speed for that single stretch of track. If you pick a straight or hairpin, that’s not really going to be representative of what really matters: the average speed of a whole lap.
So, what’s the solution? Until now there hasn’t really been one, you either take a random sampling of speed or you need to do enough mental maths that you’d be better off with a computer doing the work. I say until now, because Brooklands have just come up with a solution.
The classic racing aficionados among you will already have heard of Brooklands. The historic racetrack was the world’s first banked circuit and, while it hosted its last race back in 1939, it hosted the first British Grand Prix in 1926. It was home to numerous racing records (the Bentley boys were particular fans) and was timing some of the most influential early races until World War II shut it down. It’s not just a history of racing; it’s a history of timekeeping.
In the modern era, Brooklands is best known as a museum to racing and aviation. But it’s also a watch brand, who back in 2023 launched the gorgeous, Sir Terence Conran designed Triple-Four chronograph, a heritage bi-compax number. Now though, they’ve designed something that’s definitely not a heritage throwback: the Brooklands P1 Racing Bezel.
The idea behind the new bezel is simple: cut out the guesswork. Rather than timing the nebulous concept of a single known measurement, each version of the P1 is designed for a specific racetrack. This means that you can sit trackside at Silverstone, start your chronograph when your driver passes you and stop it when they buzz past again. You’ll then have their actual average lap speed, no approximating markers needed.
It’s an elegant solution that mirrors how most people will actually use their racing chronograph, one that can be applied to hundreds of different tracks and series. As you may have suspected therefore, the P1 bezel is built to be interchangeable, allowing you to swap between Silverstone, Nürburgring or Monaco. It’s not just tracks either; the tachymeter scale can display km or mph and can be tailored for F1, endurance racing, anything where a lap’s going to take under 60 seconds.
At present, the Brooklands P1 Racing Bezel is available on Brookland’s own P1 Veloce chronograph, a more modern, black-dialled take on their vintage-styled Triple-Four. It comes fit with a standard 60-second, non-tachymeter bezel, but it’s a watch that suits a bit of colour around the edge. Just turn the bezel 30 degrees anticlockwise and it’ll unlock, allowing you to slot one of the colourful, track-specific numbers on in its place. It’s satisfying enough that you might find yourself choosing a track of the day to go with your outfit.
You may have noticed that I said ‘at present’ in the paragraph above. That’s because Brooklands have big plans for their shiny new racing bezel concept. The idea isn’t to keep it to themselves, but offer it to anyone that wants to, I don’t know, build a F1 specific limited edition. Or commemorate a particular racing series. Or to pay homage to a specific track. Straightforward a concept as the P1 Racing Bezel is, the opportunities are vast. The only limits are the size of your chronograph and storage space. After all, you’ll want more than one, right?
More details at Brooklands.
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