Here’s how stop-motion Lego films capture the chaotic charm of an F1 weekend

Almost every second of a Formula 1 weekend is captured, recorded and dissected by experts and fans both in and out of the paddock. Race broadcasts, highlights reels and clips on social media all let you relive the action again and again, but none are quite as charming as these stop-motion Lego race recreations.

“I knew I liked Lego, and I’ve seen people do stop motion, so I figured why not I try it,” says Zach Lang, the brains behind The Moving Bricks YouTube channel.

After every grand prix weekend, Lang spends hours recreating all the racing action using tracks and cars built out of Lego. It’s a painstaking process that takes hours of construction, staging, photographing and editing.

“Patience is key in stop motion,” Lang explains to Motorsport.com. “Because it takes absolutely forever.”

In the days leading up to a race, Lang will recreate the racetrack using Lego at home. He’ll then settle down to watch the race, paying close attention to any exciting action or incidents that he thinks will make the final video.

“Once the race is over, I go ahead and start filming my video,” he says.

“That takes, like, forever and it’s the only thing I do all day. Normally it goes into the night and most of the time, honestly, I don’t even finish it that night – it goes into the next day.

“Sunday night, Monday, I normally get the filming done and then editing, of course, that takes like four or five hours. So, I guess, filming wise, accumulative – it can be 10, 15, even 20 hours. Brazil last year, that one took forever.”

All that time and effort goes into a roughly nine-minute film, which is a frame-by-frame reshoot of the highlights reels that F1 posts on YouTube after every race.

Each film uses a bespoke Lego track layout that Lang has had to design and build himself to closely mirror the real venues F1 races at. On top of that, the cars he uses are his own design, as Lang started making his films long before Lego launched its own Speed Champions sets that recreate every car on the grid.

This has its advantages, though, as because the cars are bespoke, he can tweak and change them every race if a team comes armed with a one-off livery, new sponsor or other change that he wants to reflect in his films.

Now, the actual patience begins

Once the cars and tracks are prepared, Lang takes “2,000 to 5,000” individual stills for his nine-minute movies. And, between each frame, he must move the cars a tiny amount so that when the still photographs are played back in quick succession, it creates motion on screen.

“I use my phone to take the pictures, so with my phone I have to set up the right angle, and it has to be low to the ground, so it looks like it’s the actual camera,” Lang explains.

“I have to keep the camera still, and from there, I zoom it into however close I want the camera to be. That’s just setting up the camera and now, the actual patience begins.

“You have to be so precise, moving every single car each frame, and you can only move it a tiny little bit each time or else it will look wrong.”

Then, there are the racing incidents that Lang needs to contend with. Overtakes, contact and crashes in a race all require special attention, as Lang strives to make his films as close to the real footage as possible.

Crashes and contact between two cars are particularly time consuming, as Lang needs to account for things like tyre smoke and debris that flies across the track when cars collide.

“I have to be pinpoint accurate with those and I watch back replays so many times to make sure I get it 100% accurate,” he says.

“I use cotton that you’re supposed to put in a pillow, and I tear it apart and use that for the smoke. I make a tiny little bit for the first part of contact, and then each frame I put a little bit more and a little bit more behind the cars. Then, I have to make sure it moves, of course, because it can’t be still in a shot where everything’s moving.

“When the cars touch, I basically pick up the car itself and just take off a bunch of the little Lego pieces, because I know that they’re gonna go flying everywhere. I also take a bunch of the smallest Lego pieces, like a one-by-one, and scatter those around so it looks like it’s just like shards of carbon fibre and debris.”

The cars, smoke and carbon fibre shards all have to be repositioned in every frame that Lang takes, and he says careful attention is paid to the way the debris moves so that it mirrors the flow of the cars and leaves a natural field of destruction behind.

This, he says, is one of the most challenging aspects of each film he creates, alongside the race start where he has all 20 cars to keep track of in every frame.

An exciting race is more fun to film

But despite the extra time and effort that comes with recreating an action-packed grand prix, Lang doesn’t think this takes away from his enjoyment of an F1 weekend.

“Everyone loves to watch an action-packed race, whether that’s a ton of overtakes, a battle for the lead, or a big crash,” Lang says.

“But, I kind of enjoy filming that too, because it is also kind of boring to film a race like Japan this year where pretty much nothing happened. And it is definitely much more enjoyable to film a big crash, because anytime something like that happens, people are gonna like it a lot more than just a basic overtake.”

Whether it’s an action-packed grand prix or a processional race, Lang’s films inject an element of charm into the F1 weekend. His unique approach to marking a race weekend earns him thousands of views on each film, and his work is also getting noticed by Lego and several F1 insiders.

Lego repeatedly comments on his posts across YouTube and social media, and he says an F1 insider cornered him at the Las Vegas Grand Prix to compliment his work.

“There is a lot of people in the industry that respect it,” he adds. “There’s someone at one team that invited me to a couple of races and I’ve been able to give them a car for the team they work on.”

Just five years after Lang made his first stop-motion movie and four since he committed to these faithful recreations of every grand prix weekend, Lang’s love of F1 has only gown.

Now, he’s getting invites from F1 insiders to attend races and aspires to study engineering with an eye on an eventual career in motorsport. Not bad for a few hours a week playing with Lego, right?