Gabriel Leone wears a TAG Heuer S/EL

In Netflix's Senna, Gabriel Leone sits in the McLaren-Honda in the red Marlboro suit, the canary-yellow helmet resting beside him, the championship years rebuilt down to the livery. The watch the series puts on his wrist is the one Senna wore through them: the TAG Heuer S/EL Chronograph. TAG Heuer launched the S/EL in 1987 as the top of its range, and Senna, one of the brand's ambassadors, made it his daily watch from 1988 to 1993, the stretch that held all three of his world titles. The line was later renamed the Link.

The watches came from TAG Heuer itself. Heritage director Nicholas Biebuyck, who keeps the company's archive and has sourced watches for films including Ferrari and Barbie, spent close to a year on Senna and pulled S/EL Chronographs from stock in both period dials, champagne and anthracite. By his own account it was the watch that mattered most to get right, the one most closely tied to Senna. Senna raced before the era when drivers post their own wrist shots, so Biebuyck worked from old footage and photographs to pin down what was actually on his wrist.

The S/EL is not the only TAG Heuer on screen. For the 1993 and early 1994 seasons Biebuyck added Series 6000 models Senna wore late in his career, and for a fictionalized family scene he chose a solid-gold pre-Carrera, reference 409 from around 1955, a 35mm case housing a Valjoux 22, to stand in for the watch of Senna's father. Senna kept the S/EL on through 1993. He was killed at Imola in May 1994.