- More than twice as many drivable Lego vehicles will be at the U.K. race this weekend compared with last year's event in Miami.
- The new Lego F1 minicars are smaller and made with fewer bricks, but their top speed is now a blazing 15 mph.
- Lego and F1 have worked together for almost three decades, and everything from model kits for kids to brick-built trophies is part of the story.
Lego and Formula 1's joint marketing efforts continue this weekend with a larger-than-ever Drivers' parade at Silverstone. A Lego Group spokesperson told Car and Driver there's no big secret for increasing the parade this time around. "We were blown away by the excitement generated by the 2025 Formula 1 Miami Drivers' Parade. So, this year we wanted to go even bigger and better, producing 22 Lego minicars, one for each driver on the grid."
Last year, Lego brought 10 drivable F1 cars to the Miami Grand Prix, and all 20 drivers on the grid were able to feel the wind from inside a pile of ABS plastic as they cruised on the track at speeds of up to 12.5 mph. These "big-build Formula 1 cars" were almost 1:1 scale, and each required almost 400,000 Lego pieces to build. For functionality, they also had things like Pirelli Slick Tires and other drive components so that, in the end, around 2204 pounds of the big build cars' 3306-pound weight was Lego bricks. The parade was a hit, and Lego even released a 48-minute video about it in October and said in a later press release that the event was "a lap of chaos, childlike joy, and laughter."
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This year, Lego is going both bigger with the number of vehicles and smaller with the cars themselves. The Lego Drivers' Parade 2.0 will see more than double the number of cars, 22, allowing each driver to pilot their own. The go-kart-like vehicles also move at slightly faster speeds, now up to a blazing 15.5 mph. Lego said that the new minicars are made with 28,000 pieces each and "other components" that allow them to drive, including standard go-kart wheels. Each Lego F1 minicar weighs around 617 pounds, of which around 143 pounds are Lego bricks.
What that will mean in practice is that the enjoyable and chaotic parade/race from last year should feature more action this time. The two drivers for each team were forced to share space in the big-build cars in 2025, but for 2026, the go-kart size will give each driver control of their own four wheels. The 2026 Lego Drivers' Parade is scheduled to take place around two hours before the race starts on Sunday, so expect more laughs before the competition gets serious.
As these parades suggest, Lego and F1 enjoy their longstanding brand partnership, which started in 1998. At last year's Silverstone race, Lego brought in full-size, brick-built Royal Automobile Club replica trophies for the winners. The partnership means that toy store aisles across the world now offer Lego F1 model kits of varying complexity and price points, from $12 McLaren race cars to larger, Technics models of the cars that cost around $220–$230. Last year, Lego also launched minifig-sized Speed Champions F1 car model kits for all 10 teams.
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Sebastian Blanco has been writing about electric vehicles, hybrids, and hydrogen cars since 2006. His articles and car reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Automotive News, Reuters, SAE, Autoblog, InsideEVs, Trucks.com, Car Talk, and other outlets. His first green-car media event was the launch of the Tesla Roadster, and since then he has been tracking the shift away from gasoline-powered vehicles and discovering the new technology's importance not just for the auto industry, but for the world as a whole. Throw in the recent shift to autonomous vehicles, and there are more interesting changes happening now than most people can wrap their heads around. You can find him on Twitter or, on good days, behind the wheel of a new EV.