LEGO took centre stage ahead of the Miami Grand Prix when all 20 drivers take part in the drivers’ parade – in fully-drivable LEGO cars.
Earlier this year, Motorsport.com visited one of the company’s big build factories in the Czech Republic, in a small town on the outskirts of Prague called Kladno.
When we arrived, we were greeted by a handful of LEGO’s top designers and engineers, who took us on a tour of the factory and showed us how the team planned to build all 10 F1 cars brick-by-brick. Like the real vehicles, each LEGO car is unique, and designed to be as similar to their real-life counterpart as LEGO bricks will allow.
The life-sized LEGO builds are nearly 1:1 scale, containing almost 400,000 bricks each. They each weigh 1,000kg and were built with such precision that even the Pirelli tyres, sponsor logos, and aerodynamic curves had been recreated in spectacular detail.
Most impressively, however, the cars can move. They’re capable of reaching 20 km/h and were designed as two-seaters so all 20 drivers could be inside during the drivers’ parade. Over 22,000 hours of collective effort from a 26-person team – designers, engineers, and master LEGO builders – went into the fleet.
When the cars made their way onto the grid ahead of Sunday’s race, the drivers seemed to be transported back to their earlier years, and were very impressed by the LEGO machinery. George Russell even joked about using the vehicles as “bumper cars,” but vetoed the idea after learning how many hours were spent building the cars.
Stay up to speed with the latest F1 Miami Grand Prix news, expert analysis, photos and videos. Join our watch along on Race Center Live by signing up here.
