REVIEW: Lego’s Speed Champions F1, an adrenaline build

With Formula One fever revving up in South Africa and a grand prix expected possibly in 2027, the country is lapping up racing merchandise, including Lego’s Speed Champions F1 cars.

As a massive F1 fan, I was excited to hear of the partnership between F1 and Lego when it was unveiled in November 2024.

F1

If you love to build, the Lego Speed Champions F1 cars will heighten your F1 fever and tenacity to be a kid again as excitement builds in South Africa for lineup of Red Bulls Max Verstappen, Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton and McLaren’s Lando Norris on the starting grid.

With lots of parts, techniques and a large array of drivers and sponsors, Lego has gone all out with this review starting with a…..NEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!

The Lego Speed Champions feature F1 cars currently racing on the Formula One circuit and with a F1 Grand Prix possibly being held in South Africa in 2027, these racers are getting a lot of attention.,

Speed Champions basically puts racing car lovers in the driver’s seat with realistic vehicle models from familiar racing competitors.

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Build

I found the cars easy to build and not particularly challenging. If you work really fast, you can build the F1 car of your choice in 30 to 60 minutes.

Each set consists of six bags in total, with the build completed in three separate sections.

In addition, each set comes with a plethora of stickers which replicate the true F1 car as they are all covered in sponsors to help promote the team.

Small

While speed is the essence of F1 cars, no pun is intended when I say that the sets were a quick build and somewhat slightly faded the brain teaser of where the next part goes.

All 10 current F1 team constructors are represented. Individually, each car is not a big build. The Ferrari, for example, is just 275 pieces, while the Mercedes is 267. The cars themselves are also quite small, coming in at 20cm in length and only 8cm wide.

When you compare these measures to their Lego Technic counterparts, such as the McLaren Technic set, they are considerably smaller, which is a bit disappointing. However, this is particularly beneficial for storage reasons, as they take up less space on the shelf, allowing for more room for Lego.

Availability and pricing

Although I have only experienced three of the 10 builds, these sets are a must for every F1 fan, albeit some very minor issues including under-detailed racing suit and the price is a bit high, but the high level of detail goes some way to justify the asking price.

Lego’s Speed Champions F1 cars include Ferrari, Mercedes, Alpine, Williams, Haas, McLaren, Aston Martin, Red Bull, Sauber and Visa Cash RB. They retail for R499 each.

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