Early Races were mainly timed by stopwatches mounted to vehicle dashboards, but because the complication was shrunk, they were a lot more generally viewed on wrists, specifically in the F1 and endurance racing heyday between the ’50s and ’70s. Motivated by British pilot’s watches in the seventies, Hamilton’s Khaki Aviation https://www.watchesworld.com/understanding-the-complex-world-of-chronometers/