LEGO Speed Champions Formula 1 wave in review: How different are they?
The LEGO Speed Champions Formula 1 wave has been criticised for serving up the same car in different colours – but there’s more to them than first meets the eye.
When built on a small scale, it’s hard to ignore the fact that a modern Formula 1 car will always have roughly the same shape and outline. For LEGO Speed Champions, that means that many scoffed at the idea of a 10-strong wave, with every team getting their own model.
While attending the launch of the LEGO Formula 1 partnership last year, we spoke to Formula 1 journalist Will Buxton who emphasised that ‘from the very first brick’ each set offers something new. “As a Formula 1 fan, I’m just nerding out over the intricacy and the level of detail that they’ve gone to on these,” he said, speaking about the Speed Champions wave.
Do Will’s claims hold true? Let’s take a closer look at the wave now we have all 10 in hand for review.
From afar…
When you look at them all lined up, it’s hard to deny that they all have roughly the same shape. After all, the real-life Formula 1 cars have the same overall shape, honed from years of research into aerodynamics and speed science. To have vastly different builds would be inauthentic, or you’d need to take cars from different eras of Formula 1.
On the face of it, being able to display the entire pack of the most powerful machines in motorsports is part of the thrill. For hardcore Speed Champions or Formula 1 fans, it’s certainly a delight to line up every team of race cars and spotlight which minor details give each car an edge over the other – because there are indeed those slight differences to pick up for the eagle-eyed among us.
No two builds are the same
Starting with the build itself, every single car starts differently. 77244 Mercedes-AMG F1 W15, for example, starts with you building the front wing and gradually working backwards through the car. 77248 BWT Alpine F1 Team A524 starts from the centre and works up, creating the driver’s seat first and then working out in layers to create the bodywork.
Considering the final silhouette of the cars end up pretty similar, it’s no small feat from the LEGO Group to have thought of so many ways to build the same car. If, say, you needed to build all 10 cars in a matter of days in order to review them, it’s far from a laborious or dull task.
Every single one employs new techniques and creative part usage to keep you engaged, so whether you’re building one or several of them, it doesn’t feel repetitive. Perhaps the only element that feels monotonous is carefully applying the stickers – but that’s a LEGO Speed Champions problem that’s not limited to just this wave.
Differentiating with DRS
One of the most significant ways to differentiate between the cars – aside from the obvious colours – is the DRS, or drag reduction system. In real-life, this clever piece of engineering is a form of driver-adjustable bodywork that reduces drag to increase the race car’s top speed. It’s only enabled at certain times, usually to attempt an overtake.
In LEGO Speed Champions, it doesn’t affect the speed of the sets or affect the rear wing, but it is clearly visible and the designers have used different elements between the cars to capture the different teams’ approaches to the tool. It’s close-up details like this that make the building process so enjoyable – and will be fodder for Formula 1 fans to nerd out over.
After all, if you look closely at pictures of the actual race cars from the 2024 Formula 1 season, the teams have different DRS at play. 77247 KICK Sauber F1 Team C44 is perhaps the most different, made up of two pieces of bodywork rather than one, as in real life. However, even on cars like 77242 Ferrari SF-24 F1 and 77251 McLaren F1 Team MCL38, where the same element is used for the DRS, it connects to the rest of the car in a different way.
Formula 1 teams don’t copy
That leads us to the crucial point of difference: Formula 1 teams don’t design the cars in the same way. If they did, it would be a rather dull series of races between cars that all drive exactly the same (although it would be a way to test whether Verstappen really is so much faster than every other driver). However, that’s just not reality.
As such, the different techniques the teams employ trickle down to the LEGO Speed Champions sets inspired by them. From afar, sure, they look very similar – but take a look at 77242 Ferrari SF-24 F1 and 77251 McLaren F1 Team MCL38 side by side, as pictured above. The body of 77242 Ferrari SF-24 F1 is much wider, built out of tiles and blocky pieces, while 77251 McLaren F1 Team MCL38 tapers in much more, using sloped pieces to create the aerodynamic curves of the car.
They feel very different in hand as well, with the narrow centre of 77251 McLaren F1 Team MCL38 giving a much more delicate feel, while 77242 Ferrari SF-24 F1 feels sturdier, and is a set you’re not worried about sending hurtling down a tabletop to recreate racing speeds.
Whether you’ll want to buy all of the LEGO Speed Champions Formula 1 wave or cherry-pick your favourites is really up to you. If you want a complete set but are worried about being bored building and displaying 10 recolours of the same car, rest assured that this won’t be the case.
If you do want a full collection, pre-order all 10 cars and save 10% by shopping at Brick Deals.
These sets were provided for review by the LEGO Group.
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Very nice post, thank’s for submitting this article.
love Lego. but if they want to truly recreate these wonderful machines with any accuracy, the most glaring miss is with the rear wheels and tires. how hard is it to get that one simple element right? instead we get 4 of the exact same wheels. can anyone fix this?
They are not the same. The real wheels are larger.