LEGO has teamed up with Formula 1 star Lando Norris for an ambitious project, as the McLaren driver took to the iconic Silverstone racetrack to drive a life-size LEGO Technic car around the circuit.
In August, LEGO launched its Ultimate Technic P1 set, a 3,893-piece replica of McLaren’s iconic P1 hybrid supercar.
However, the two companies then set themselves an ‘ultimate challenge’ inspired by LEGO Technic’s “build for real” ethos, creating a life-size LEGO Technic version of the McLaren P1 that could be driven around one of the world’s most famous – and technically demanding – racetracks.
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“The steering, I thought, was pretty good,” said Lando in a video released by LEGO and McLaren to mark the car’s lap around Silverstone. “Copse – I did it flat, the little wing mirrors flapped a little bit!
“I was like, ‘Oh, I’d better – I should stay off the kerbs here. It’s mint!”
While on a hot lap with the car, Lando remarked that it “drives pretty good”, and added towards the close of the lap that he was taking “the shortest distance possible” and “nibbling the kerbs” as he put the vehicle through its paces.
Digital Spy was among those invited to Silverstone to see a demonstration of the finished vehicle a couple of days before Lando drove it.
Buy LEGO Technic’s Ultimate McLaren P1
Built around the McLaren P1 car’s drivetrain, braking system, wheels and tyres, the rest of the vehicle features 342,817 LEGO Technic bricks, and a total of 11 elements were moulded especially for this one-of-a-kind vehicle.
The design of the life-size LEGO vehicle is optimised for rigidity and strength, while also keeping the car’s weight to a minimum (its total weight is around 1,220 kilograms).
Powered by a system that includes an electric car battery and LEGO Technic function batteries, this life-size LEGO supercar has been designed to reach speeds of between 50-60 km/h.
It’s also the first LEGO ‘big build’ vehicle with fully functional steering – enabling it to drive around corners, which meant that Lando could take it out for a full lap around Silverstone in a world first.
A team of 23 specialists across the LEGO and McLaren organisations created the vehicle, with 8,344 hours of development and construction going into bringing the life-size LEGO McLaren P1 to life.
“I was amazed!” Kasper Rene Hansen, LEGO Technic’s lead designer for the McLaren P1 model, told Digital Spy on the experience of seeing the life-size car for the first time.
“I have seen it only in pictures some weeks ago, so I couldn’t wait to see it for real how it is, and see it driving. So when they showed it to us here, I was like, ‘Wow, oh ho ho!’ That’s a wonderful feeling.”
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After watching a demonstration of the car in the pitlane that runs alongside Silverstone’s Hamilton Straight, Jonathan Beaumont, senior vehicle engineering manager at McLaren Automotive, told DS: “For me, it’s absolutely phenomenal.
“It’s a great piece of engineering itself, and it genuinely does look like a P1, you know? It’s clear to see that they’ve done such a great job.”
Jonathan added that the life-size car concept “was always part of the idea, to do the ultimate challenge and drive the P1. And so that’s a first for LEGO, a first for McLaren to have a full-size vehicle that’s actually drivable and capable of setting a lap time.
“That was set out very early on, and part of the engineering brief as we worked through it.”
So, what challenges were there when creating a life-size, drivable LEGO car?
Jonathan noted that the first was the power unit, and while McLaren wasn’t involved in the specification of it, “What we did do is we ran some simulation testing for them, to prove that with the power and the weight that they have, that the car would be capable of completing a lap at Silverstone”.
He added that wind resistance at the car’s targeted top speed of 50km per hour was also a factor, noting “a lot of the engineering team over at LEGO were looking into things like the rear wing that sits up in that wind”.
While you won’t be able to have a life-size LEGO P1 at home (this one will find a permanent home after it’s been on tour – most likely in a LEGO building), you can instead take home a 1:8 scale replica of the original McLaren supercar.
The latest product in a collaboration between LEGO and McLaren that’s lasted nine years to date, the 3,893-piece LEGO Ultimate Technic P1 has numerous clever details, including a moving seven-speed gearbox with a paddle-shifting system behind the steering wheel.
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Jonathan told us that it was specifically chosen for this project because it’s an “iconic” car for the McLaren brand. “This is our first model within LEGO’s Ultimate range – so really, it could only be the P1,” he added.
One of the first supercars to incorporate hybrid technology, McLaren unveiled the P1 at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show, and it had a limited production run of only 375 vehicles. You can find out more about the real-life car’s history here.
In addition to sitting in LEGO Technic’s Ultimate range which features some of the world’s most iconic supercars, the P1 is part of McLaren’s own flagship Ultimate Series.
Jonathan told us that a highlight of the whole project was when he went to visit the life-size LEGO P1 at the brand’s production facility in Kladno, near Prague.
“So to get the opportunity to go from viewing something virtually on a screen with the teams as we worked on the collaboration, to actually being able to sit in the car,” he recalled.
“I took over some of the original bits with me, [such as] the steering wheel – and actually, because of how the car’s been built, it genuinely does feel like being sat in a P1.
“The seats are LEGO, all of the interior centre console, everything’s perfectly laid out to imitate the P1.”
During a presentation of the model to journalists, Kasper confirmed that this is the first LEGO Technic model to feature a seven-speed gearbox. The wheel rims, which are a McLaren design, are also new and unique to this set.
“The rest can be reused by other models… and that’s what LEGO is about, you can take the model apart, do something else, be creative, learning through play… that’s what it’s all about,” he added.
The model also has spring-loaded mechanisms to operate the doors, further moving parts including the rear spoiler, suspension and steering, and a V8 piston engine that can switch into and out of hybrid mode.
As Kasper demonstrated on a fully-assembled model of the LEGO Technic McLaren P1, you can also open the rear clamshell – just as you would on the real car.
Kasper estimated that the build would take “around 12-16 hours, if you’re familiar with LEGO Technic” – to which McLaren Automotive’s chief design officer Tobias Sühlmann joked: “Yes, but for you, it takes 8 hours maximum!”
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Kasper added during the product presentation that he had personally built and rebuilt the model on several occasions, “to make the build flow nice and smooth” – feeling that this testing is an important feature of the overall product design process.
He was also fortunate enough to have a ride in a real P1 supercar at the iconic McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, an experience that he told DS was “amazing”.
“When I was sitting in the real car, I couldn’t imagine it was happening!” he recalled to us.
On his first visit to the MTC, he hadn’t been able to see the car as it was at the factory on that occasion, but “the second time, they rolled it out and said ‘Now, Kasper, we can give you a ride in the car’.
Kasper with the LEGO McLaren P1 model and the life-size car
“It’s really a car you ‘put on yourself’,” he continued. “You sit very close [to the driver]… and when you slam down the doors, you’re really in a really little intense cabin.
“And then the engine starts, then you feel the pressure from behind you. That feeling – wow!'”
Kasper also enjoyed “walking down the boulevard [at MTC] to see all the Formula Ones, as well as the supercars, and their hybrid cars”.
Speaking of the two brands’ shared passion, he added: “Then, when we showed this model to them, they were amazed by the Technic one, we were amazed by the real cars.”
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He was very complimentary of the time McLaren colleagues gave in terms of advice, resources and helpful feedback, putting this down to a shared passion for design, engineering, technology – and a challenge.
Kasper added the unboxing experience is also important to him in terms of giving LEGO builders something to enjoy before they even start to construct their models, “so you get this ‘wow’ feeling when you open it from the moment you start building to the final results”.
When he’s close to finishing his design work, the packaging design team will then start considering how to present the car both on the box and the pieces inside, using a digital model. Kasper added that this team also contributes “many, many, many hours” as part of the overall process for a LEGO Technic set.
As the team unveiled the life-size car at Silverstone, Jonathan spoke a little during the presentation about his personal love of LEGO, which first sparked when he was a child.
When we asked what he hoped people would get out of the time they spend with the LEGO Technic version of McLaren’s P1, he said: “For me, it’s all about increasing interest in engineering itself. Obviously, I’m fully focused on the automotive industry.
“So if we can do something to promote the automotive industry – and if that’s through building LEGO and inspiring the next generation of engineers – that really is the key for me.”
The LEGO Technic Ultimate McLaren P1 has a retail price of £389.99 in the UK and $449.99 in the US. It’s available to buy now.