LEGO Speed Champions 77247 KICK Sauber F1 Team C44 review
LEGO Speed Champions 77247 KICK Sauber F1 Team C44 takes to the track for our in-depth review.
The vivid green of 77247 KICK Sauber F1 Team C44 shines brighter than most of the other LEGO Speed Champions Formula 1 sets, packing the same punch as the real car’s livery does on track. There’s no denying it’s an eye-catcher – but how does the LEGO Speed Champions set shape up when you put it through its paces?
Let’s get down to pre-release testing and see what’s what about 77247 KICK Sauber F1 Team C44.
Release: March 1, 2025 Price: £22.99 / $26.99 / €26.99 Pieces: 259 Minifigures: 1 LEGO: Order now
KICK, not Stake
The LEGO Group has some strict guidelines around what it can and cannot depict in LEGO sets, wanting to protect its status as a family-friendly company. That means no political or violent imagery, along with no connections to brands not deemed appropriate for younger builders.
In the case of 77247 KICK Sauber F1 Team C44, this appears to have impacted the car’s branding. Instead of ‘Stake’, an Australian-Curaçaoan online casino that is a title sponsor of the Sauber Formula 1 team, the stickers along the wing, upper engine intake, and wheel guards read ‘KICK’, referring to a live-streaming platform similar to Twitch – and a much safer brand to promote (although one not without its own controversies).
If accuracy is what you really want in 77247 KICK Sauber F1 Team C44, this might cause some frustration (although we’re sure some custom sticker creators will offer some Stake-branded options not too long from now). However, it doesn’t really affect the overall look of the car. The branding is in all the same places and to the same scale. Unless you’re a diehard Stake fan, you might not even notice the change.
The finer details
Indeed, overall 77247 KICK Sauber F1 Team C44 pays attention to the finer details better than some of the other cars in the wave. It’s the only car to include two elements for the DRS, reflecting what the real-life car employs on track.
The blocky colours on top of smooth curves that the Formula 1 car employs must also have been tough to recreate using LEGO bricks but it’s done masterfully, using stacks of tiles paired with sloped elements in different colours to create a bodywork that looks unified, even when examined up close.
The stickered elements on the front wing also expertly depict the layers used to create the first section of the car to hit the track, something that a lot of the other cars in the wave struggled to do, instead preferring to dedicate the space to branding. Real front wings are typically made of layers of material, not one single piece, and 77247 KICK Sauber F1 Team C44 demonstrates this down to the millimetre.
Born to be a LEGO set
The vivid colours of 77247 KICK Sauber F1 Team C44 and the dedication to capturing every detail (aside from the branding) mean you’re left with possibly the most fun LEGO set of them all. LEGO Speed Champions sets should feel race-ready and brightly-coloured – and 77247 KICK Sauber F1 Team C44 ticks every box in that regard.
There’s a very clear focus on what will make this car work and feel like it should be on a race track: the highlights on the front wing, the building tricks to make the flanks feel more sculpted than they are, the vibrant stickers and colour scheme. It all comes together perfectly to create an ideal brick-built Formula 1 car. Sauber isn’t the most popular of Formula 1 teams but don’t overlook 77247 KICK Sauber F1 Team C44 for that reason. It’s a pleasure to build and a pleasure to play with – ah, we mean display. Of course.
Honest opinion: An excellent example of LEGO-fying a Formula 1 car and choosing the most important elements to make for a fun Speed Champions set.
This set was provided for review by the LEGO Group.
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I haven’t built this one (and I might not because it’s so similar to the others in that set), but I did build 77245 Aston Martin Aramco F1 AMR24 today… Wal-Mart put these on sale a week early, for whatever reason. You can buy the 8 pack of F1 Speed Champions, or you can buy them individually – I’ll buy just the ones I want, because all 8 look almost identical to each other, aside from color and stickers. 30 stickers with 77245, and only a trio of preprinted pieces. 5 new parts are in this kit, or at least, I’ve never seen them before (I can send you a photo of them if you like): the one-piece molded struts and fender for the front wheels; the wheels are molded, not rubber, but the rear wheels are slightly wider than the front ones; a 5×2 wedge piece with a slight concave curve to it for the rear spoiler; a 2×1 oval piece (similar to what we all know), but this has a thin square with a hole through it jutting up from one side; and the driver’s helmet has an integrated ‘spoiler’ for it, and the tinted clear visor is part of the helmet, not a separate piece. It’s the same length is the Aston Martin F1 from last year, and I imagine they’ll all be the same. Assembly was easy, taking less than an hour, and there are 6 bags with the kit… though there aren’t many pieces in each bag; bag 3 only had 23 pieces in it. You build bags 1&2 together, then 3&4, then 5&6, so basically, the kit only has 3 bags. The stickers (30 of them), as usual, are the biggest pain if you’re not good with them. Overall a quick, easy build, but there really isn’t much difference between this kit and the double kit (76925) that they released last year. I am looking forward to the 1/8 F1 cars they have coming out, but I’ll check them out thoroughly before buying them… I like the Mercedes ‘Petronas’ one (42171), but the McLaren (42141) just doesn’t look that good when completed.