Watch: Lando Norris Laps Silverstone in a McLaren P1 Made of LEGOs
It’s not the first time we’ve seen life-size car replicas in LEGO blocks. And not the first McLaren, either. The toy company itself built a 1:1-scale 720S for the Goodwood Festival of Speed back in 2017.
Now, this one is a little different. It’s a one-of-a-kind, fully drivable McLaren P1 made from LEGO Technic elements. Fully drivable? Well, the car has functional steering, making it the first LEGO big build ever capable of steering and taking on tricky racetrack corners.
And if that wasn’t enough, McLaren F1 driver Lando Norris was asked to put it to the test by completing one lap of the iconic British racetrack at Silverstone, which is 5.89 km long. It’s all captured in the video below:
Did you see the mirrors shake? And Norris even dared to drive over rumble strips at some points. Back in the pit lane—and sweating a little—he told the crew the LEGO-made P1 actually drove pretty well, almost like a real car, and steering also felt good.
For those of you who like numbers, it took a team of 23 specialists from design, engineering and building from the LEGO group and McLaren working a total of 8,344 hours and manipulating 342,817 LEGO Technic elements to build the car, which weighs approximately 1,220 kg. There’s an electric motor consisting of LEGO Technic Function batteries and an electric car battery, allowing it to travel further than any other LEGO model before it.
By the way, if you’d like to build your own replica, albeit at a 1:8 scale, you can order a LEGO Technic McLaren P1 kit for $589.99—definitely not as realistic, but a whole lot easier to assemble with about 100 times fewer pieces.