Watches

The winners of the 2023 Le Mans 24hr race will get this Rolex Daytona

Fittingly, after racing for 24hrs, the winners get… a very special timepiece

TopGear.comPublished: 05 Jun 2023  External link to Top Gear Magazine Subscription – 5 issues for £5Skip 3 photos in the image carousel and continue reading1 / 3

“For me, this year is all about the 24 Hours of Le Mans,” explains nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen. He’s not wrong – 2023 marks 100 years of the most famous – and most glamorous – endurance race in the world.

And befitting its status as the world’s oldest endurance race, the winners of the 2023 edition won’t just get their names etched into the history books, but a special Rolex etched with their triumph.

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Rolex – sponsor of Le Mans since 2001 as the race’s ‘official timepiece’ – has created a specially engraved Cosmograph Daytona; a fitting watch perhaps, taking its name from that other legendary endurance circuit which played host to a number of US speed records. Indeed, “Daytona has greatly inspired the legend of this chronograph”, says Rolex.

First launched in 1963, the Cosmo Daytona promises exceptional reliability “under even the most challenging conditions” (one suspects sustained g-force in a 24hr race qualifies), thanks to continued development of its mechanical heart. Original a Valjoux movement, it changed in 1988 to a calibre 4030, then a Rolex 4130 calibre in 2000 and most recently a 4131 in 2023.

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