On September 1st football star Cristiano Ronaldo (CR7) and F1 World Champion Jenson Button met at Jarama Race Track outside Madrid, Spain, to perform a set of roaring challenges and demonstrate that as some of the best sportsmen in the world, they do not crack under pressure. The challenges included car drifts, hot laps, football shots on a spinning McLaren race car target and a car chase experience for CR7 and Jenson Button. All of the amazing challenges are a mixture of both football and F1 skills.
Cristiano and Jenson both drove McLaren racing cars to perform the challenges. Cristiano’s car was a McLaren P1 and Jenson’s a 650S. They used Nike balls for the football challenges and tracked the time and stunts with a special McLaren edition of the Carrera chronograph TAG Heuer watch. TAG Heuer chose the Jarama Race Track as homage to Heuer’s chronograph watch, the Jarama, a late 1970’s piece inspired by the Spanish Formula 1 track.
This unbelievably “extreme” sport became a mind-blowing reality when TAG Heuer turned the famous Circuito del Jarama into a gigantic football pitch. The two TAG Heuer boys had a total gas showing us, with great flair and at ridiculously high speeds, just what “Don’t Crack Under Pressure” really means. Drifts and co-driving experience for CR7; shots, donuts and slaloms for the Formula One champion. It was a super-charged, super-fun mix of two sporting worlds. Perhaps even the genesis of an entirely new sport. Carball, anyone? Foot-mula 1?
Jean-Claude Biver, their number one fan, was on hand to raise the checkered flag. “What an amazing day,” said Biver, who is the president of the LVMH Watch Division. “Cristiano Ronaldo and Jenson Button have incredible guts and drive. Don’t crack under pressure means something very powerful to them both. We definitely share a mindset.”
The location was a cool nod to the Jarama, a late-70’s Heuer chronograph, but the two TAG Heuer legends tracked times on the legendary Carrera caliber 1887 chronograph. They were also given some seriously expensive toys to play with: a McLaren P1 race-car for CR7, football’s two-time Balon d’or winner; and a McLaren 650S for Formula One Champion Jenson Button. Cristiano proved as agile in the driver’s seat as he is on the field, shifting, accelerating, passing to Jenson’s front fender as it gunned down the wing, deftly turned on a dime and “kicked” the ball into the net.
To share the fun with their fans, Cristiano, Jenson and TAG Heuer have been posting news on Facebook and Twitter all week. The social media response has been huge, with thousands of shared, liked and re-twitted posts. Get online and check it out!
