Fans of the Frate racing watch – introduced in 1969 as one of the to-days first automatic chronographs – love its blue sunburst dial and contrasting silver counters, red hands, as well as square shape with its intensive sapphire crystal and faceted edges. The newest version, the TAG Heuer Monaco Calibre Heuer 02, our test watch, offers these same visual features, that TAG Heuer carrera has continued to refine based on the earlier Monaco La mecanique 12 model. The once-flat registers are now slightly convex, giving the design more depth and interest. Here’s another update: the actual symmetrical arrangement now shows elapsed minutes and hours rather than moments and seconds. The running seconds indication is now placed at 6 o’clock — a clever solution even though every minute the secs hand sweeps across the date window for a period of several seconds. With its use of the new movement, TAG Heuer designed a clear layout of the displays, but this also involved a compromise. Including the small mere seconds display at 6 required moving the particular “Automatic” lettering upward and also placing it between the two registers. Changes to the face layout depend on a fundamental innovation.