Formula 1 safety cars are both beloved and feared by fans and drivers alike – but could we see an updated model come to the LEGO Formula 1 partnership in 2025?
For those who don't know, safety cars are used in Formula 1 to limit the speed of the cars when a serious incident has taken place, usually when there's debris or a medical emergency on track. They drive at the head of the pack, keeping the rest of the cars behind them.
That often results in exciting race action when it resumes again, reducing any leads that drivers might have gained. When the safety car leaves, the cars are all close to one another, offering opportunities for overtaking and wheel-to-wheel racing.
As such, safety cars have earned themselves legacy status among Formula 1 fans – and had fan media questioning whether we could see a fresh safety car LEGO set in 2025. We've had 76925 Aston Martin Vantage Safety Car & AMR23 released already this year but, with LEGO City expanding the paddock and the track in 2025, it would be great to see safety cars rendered in LEGO City scale and format too.
"Formula 1 is such a rich passion point," noted the LEGO Group's Chief Product & Marketing Officer, Julia Goldin, when asked if safety cars could be on the way. "There are so many different ways in which we can bring it to life. We're just scratching the surface now, we've done the most iconic City sets but there's a lot more to come.
"Everybody loves a safety car," she concluded, with a knowing smile. "It's important in some of the races especially. Sometimes, you just sit there and think, we need a safety car – it could change everything!"
That certainly sounds like a safety car could be on the way next year, although of course nothing is confirmed until we get an official LEGO reveal. Perhaps most excitingly, however, is the suggestion from Julia that fans can still influence where the direction of the partnership with Formula 1 can go.
"Keep bringing us the ideas," she said. "A lot of the creativity and future ideas will also come from the fans."
Anyone can offer the LEGO Group ideas and feedback, either through reviews on the LEGO store or by getting in touch with customer service. Whenever the topic comes up with LEGO designers, they always say that they genuinely do read through suggestions from fans, so if you've got a Formula 1 idea that you'd want to see in LEGO form, there's no time like the present to reach out and have your say.
Of course, some things are harder to achieve than others. Formula 1 teams often sport special liveries to honour particular anniversaries or icons from the sport. That's harder for the LEGO designers to replicate, due to how last minute they're often revealed.
"We'll consider different things," said Julia. "In terms of turnaround time for liveries, if you're talking about labels then it's different than if you're talking about something that's printed on the car. Formula 1 is a very fast-moving sport. The innovation and the speed of innovation are amazing, so it's going to be a challenge to think about how we can become speedier in our processes as well."
Could Formula 1 lead to the LEGO Group learning how to turn around products faster? That remains to be seen but, for a company that's so well-known for its quality standards, it certainly does present a fresh challenge. We've already heard about how the fast-changing nature of motorsports is affecting what drivers are selected as minifigures, but perhaps it could also lead to wider changes within the LEGO Group's processes.
Watch the full interview with Julia, as well as a detailed run-through of everything revealed so far by designer Dan Meehan, via the embedded video below.
Featured image: Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
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