LEGO Speed Champions 77251 F1 ACADEMY LEGO Race Car revealed!
Posted by TheBrickPal,
Another 2026 Speed Champions set has been unveiled: 77258 F1 ACADEMY LEGO Race Car!
The 201-piece set, available for pre-order now, is based on a real LEGO branded car hitting the track next year. It will be released on March 1st, retailing for £22.99, $27.99 or €27.99.
You can view more images, and read the full press release, after the break...
LEGO Racing Hits the F1 ACADEMY Grid in 2026, With Esmee Kosterman Behind the Wheel, in First-Of-Its-Kind Partnership
- F1 ACADEMY will feature a new livery, LEGO Racing, starting in the 2026 season, with Esmee Kosterman unveiled as the LEGO Racing driver
- The new multi-year partnership between the LEGO Group and F1 ACADEMY aims to inspire young fans, especially girls
- New research from the LEGO Group confirms that 75% of girls surveyed think racing sounds exciting, while 52% could see themselves as an F1 ACADEMY or race car driver one day*
LAS VEGAS & BILLUND, 19 NOVEMBER 2025: Today, in the pitlane of the Las Vegas Strip Circuit at the FORMULA 1 LAS VEGAS GRAND PRIX 2025, the LEGO Group and F1 ACADEMY have announced an exciting multi-year partnership to inspire young fans, especially girls, through creative play and representation.
As part of this collaboration, the LEGO Group will be represented on the F1 ACADEMY grid starting with the 2026 F1 ACADEMY season, with LEGO Racing, piloted by driver Esmee Kosterman at the wheel. Additionally, the LEGO Group and F1 ACADEMY revealed their first LEGO set together, now available for pre-order.
In 2026, Kosterman will serve as the premiere driver for LEGO Racing during her first full season in F1 ACADEMY. The 20-year-old Dutch driver has a rich history in the kart racing circuit and became the first woman to win in the Ford Fiesta Sprint Cup series in 2023, before going on to finish second in the Junior Cup and third in the overall standings. In 2024, Kosterman moved into single seaters with Indian F4 and made her F1 ACADEMY debut as the Wild Card entry at Round 5 of the season in Zandvoort, her home race.
Kosterman’s car features a one-of-a-kind LEGO Racing livery, infusing the high-performance world of F1 ACADEMY with elements of LEGO play. The livery, created by the LEGO Design team, represents both entities through colours and patterns, merged in a playful way bringing the thrill of brick building and racing to life, with a unique checkered pattern.
The stunning, merged livery of the car, the driver and the first product from the partnership were revealed at the Las Vegas event by Susie Wolff, Managing Director at F1 ACADEMY, Julia Goldin, Chief Product & Marketing Officer at the LEGO Group, LEGO designers Beatrice Amoretti and Maria Jedryszek and hosted by Ariana Bravo.
This comes at a time where F1 is attracting new and younger audiences, with 42% of the Formula 1’s fanbase now consisting of women. Recent research by the LEGO Group shows that 87% of girls surveyed would like to see more opportunities for girls in motorsport, 75% think racing sounds exciting, while 52% could see themselves as an F1 ACADEMY or race car driver one day. At the same time, 82% of parents surveyed think it’s important for girls to see women represented in motorsport, but 76% think motorsport is often perceived as “more for boys”.
With this new partnership, the LEGO Group and F1 Academy hope to inspire young fans, especially girls to explore their motor racing passions, both on and off the track.
Julia Goldin, Chief Product & Marketing Officer of the LEGO Group, said: “F1 ACADEMY is levelling the playing field in motorsport, giving young female athletes a clear pathway to achieve their dreams in the top tiers of the sport. We can’t wait to see LEGO Racing join the F1 ACADEMY grid and are so excited to have Esmee as our driver. For the first time, fans can hold their favourite F1 ACADEMY LEGO car in their hands, and I’m thrilled that we’re securing female representation in racing toys for young girls. We hope the infusion of LEGO play and creativity to this exciting sport inspires the next generation of young women in motorsport, as well as the female builders of tomorrow, that anything is possible.”
Susie Wolff, Managing Director of F1 ACADEMY, said: “We’re so proud to welcome the LEGO Group as an Official Partner of F1 ACADEMY. This collaboration isn’t just about the possibility of building an F1 Academy LEGO car, it’s about building belief in what’s possible. With our first partnership product, fans will be able to create something that stands for opportunity and representation. We hope every young girl who picks up these bricks sees more than just a model, she sees herself, her potential, and her place in the world of motorsport whether as a fan, engineer, driver or leader. Together, we’re challenging outdated perceptions of who belongs in motorsport and empowering the next generation of young women to build their own paths.”
Esmee Kosterman, Driver for LEGO Racing, said: “To be the first driver for LEGO Racing is such an exciting opportunity, and I can't wait to continue my racing journey with F1 ACADEMY. I've long been a fan of the LEGO brand, its creativity and what it stands for and to bring it to the track from the 2026 season onwards is incredible. I hope this inspires future generations of female drivers, that with hard work and determination, anything is possible!”
The LEGO Group also unveiled the LEGO Speed Champions F1 ACADEMY LEGO Race Car, the 201-piece set allows fans of LEGO Racing to hold their favourite car in their hands, and features intricate aerodynamic details, with the unique colourway and the #32 racing number, as featured on Esmee’s real on-track counterpart.
Additionally, the set is accompanied by a minifigure printed in a LEGO Racing colourway. The set brings F1 ACADEMY to life like never before, bringing the excitement from the track to the living room, reflecting the two brands commitment to championing female talent on and off the track.
As part of the first ever F1 ACADEMY weekend at the FORMULA 1 LAS VEGAS GRAND PRIX, the LEGO Group will be presenting the podium finishers of both Race 1 and Race 2, with custom LEGO Botanicals Bouquets in a moment that celebrates what is possible when talent is given the opportunity and platform to thrive. Each bouquet is built out of close to 2,000 LEGO elements and weighs close to 1 kg.
The LEGO Speed Champions F1 ACADEMY LEGO Race Car available for pre-order now from LEGO.com and select global retailers, with the set hitting shelves starting 1st March 2026 in LEGO Stores worldwide.
What do you think of this partnership? Let us know in the comments below!
62 likes
53 comments on this article
Looks nice. Aligns with lego values, as the f1 adamedy was set up to help women get into motorsport.
Smaller, fewer pieces, and $27.99.
Whoa a car! Finally something different!
Fuel guzzling F1 cars fit right in with the sustainability goals that TLG is also heavily invested in. I'm sure it's all about the women and not the money. ;)
THE WEDGE TILE IS REAL
$/€ 28 for a 201 piece set is something else...
Expect this to go on sale very quickly after release.
@R0Sch said:
"Fuel guzzling F1 cars fit right in with the sustainability goals that TLG is also heavily invested in. I'm sure it's all about the women and not the money. ;)"
Well, for one, this is not an F1 car but an F4 car......
Look mum, Lego have released another car!
No, you already have lots of Lego cars....
Piece count aside, this F4 (not F1) car is 2cm or 10% shorter than SC F1 cars. The minifigure is also a generic instead of Kosterman.
its actually a F4 car, easy pass therefore
I have my thoughts about F4 Academy as a series (I mean, does it really help women if you separate them from the men this early in their carreer without giving them any future carreer path?) , but just looking at this set......it's okay I think.
For one, I am kinda surprised by the number of prints (I think) I'm seeing here, some that at the F1 cars would surely have been stickers. Still a good number of those, but we can't expect miracles after all. I do like the look of the real car, but I honestly don't think it translates that well to the model...which is kinda weird if you think about it. I mean, they could have come up with a livery that not only screams a bit more "Lego" (and not just because of the logos), but also one that would have been more suitable to be brick built instead of this mess of bricks, prints and stickers (looks decent in that one picture with the real thing, but less so from any other angle). The shaping itself is probably as good as it gets without resorting to specialised pieces. And it's nice to see a Dutch minifig :-)
Oh, and one thing I noticed: There's the nice printed tile on the nose....but why is there some white piece peeping through? Which is very noticable in that close-up. Don't they have a yellow version of that particular piece?
Just what we needed after all those samey f1 cars
@magmafrost said:
"THE WEDGE TILE IS REAL"
I cannot even express how long I've waited for that piece
I know I don't have to have an opinion about every Lego set that comes, but I can't help it... I also know this is an F4 car and not an F1 car, but can (most) people really tell? There's just too many race cars! I have all the 8 wide Speed Champions sets, except the F1 cars and I still ended up with three of those somehow. Looking at all those others, I might like this one best, because it look a bit simpler. But yeah, I already have plenty.
Furthermore, I don't see this whole program going anywhere, but thrilled for Esmee, who got an official minifig modelled after her (somehwat)! I would seriously like that myself.
I like the principles here, and I'm surprised by how many of the parts in the car look like prints! However, I can't help but feel we've had a few too many very similar F1 cars recently and this doesn't do enough to stand out, despite this one not being an F1 car. Also - it's overpriced (I know, repeat ad nauseam)...
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but this has I think the worst ppp of any SC set; and it's the only one that is worse than 10p/part (in the UK anyway). Not great.
Wait... so, this is a LEGO model of an F1/F4 car sponsored by LEGO? Is this like LEGO-racecar-ception, or LEGO just patting themselves on the back? Either way, too bad they couldn't design their car to be actually replicable in LEGO form; it would've been the most accurate Speed Champions set to date. Also, can someone please explain why LEGO is obsessed with using that yellow-azure-magenta color scheme on all their stuff? It's hideous and ruins the appearance of every set it's used in.
@TheBrickPal
The name Maria Jedryszek is actually written with an e (Jedryszek) it would be cool if you could correct it.
EDIT: Huh, very interesting, Brickset doesn't seem to support the special character at all. For those curious, the e should have kind of an "Cedille" like the french Ç (hopefully at least this character is displayed correctly).
@magmafrost said:
"THE WEDGE TILE IS REAL"
That is fascinating... not sure I like it overmuch. And there's also a new curved angled slope on the nose, behind the 1x4 slope... like design 66956 (https://brickset.com/parts/design-66956) but with the pointy end chopped off - I suppose the angle now matches the 1x2 wedge plates rather than being 45 degrees.
Also one missed opportunity: Why doesn't the F1 Academy switch from Aramco as fuel supplier to Octan? Now that would have been a true power move!
(and currently having a company from a country where until recently women weren't even allowed to drive fueling a series that is supposed to help women in motorsports is kinda ironic anyway....)
The minifigure annoys me. Is it based off of Kosterman or not (seems like the hair says yes, yellow says no)? Should be flesh coloured, not yellow. The car even has her number on it!
I haven’t been particularly invested in the F1 cars, but I’m quite keen on this one.
If the minifig is depicting a real person, why is the head yellow?
Good god, I can't wait for this year to end. Don't get me wrong, this is a nice car, but cars are inherently boring things. A box on wheels, to swear in. Yay.
@Crux said:
"Good god, I can't wait for this year to end. Don't get me wrong, this is a nice car, but cars are inherently boring things. A box on wheels, to swear in. Yay."
Well.....2026 F1 season coming up with a whole bunch of new cars! One more team even than this year!
Oh, and if Lego is serious about F1 Academy, I do expect the full grid of that series too, in SC, City and CMC. And probably their own car in Technic both as a pullback and a big version.
Cars, cars cars, and even more cars!! ;-)
@matrox2001 said:
"Look mum, Lego have released another car!
no, you already have lots of Lego cars...."
But this one has printed Lego tiles on them! It's completely different!
I like the colour scheme on this one.
@Duq said:
"If the minifig is depicting a real person, why is the head yellow?"
Well, the real one does have yellow feet. Maybe she is slowly turning into LEGO.
@chom said:
"its actually a F4 car, easy pass therefore"
I believe you mean easy -overtake-.
A few new cool pieces, and some prints. Very colorful, tho.
While the car has a couple of new tile/slope variations, it still appears to not use the new front axle parts, and the rear axle too seems less sophisticated than the newer F1 cars. This seems like an odd step backwards, as if the car was designed way before the current F1 cars.
@Crux said: "Good god, I can't wait for this year to end. Don't get me wrong, this is a nice car, but cars are inherently boring things. A box on wheels, to swear in."
In my local area, all the department stores are still sitting on giant piles of the Speed Champions F1 car range (that was released earlier in the year), that are all just sitting there gathering dust. I thought about buying one or two, just for the sheer novelty of it (given that a lot of them are now on clearance and still aren't shifting), but just looking at all the stickers, on the cover art, gives me anxiety.
I get the feeling that the F1 cars weren't as popular as Lego was hoping they would be. It'll be interesting to see how many get sold in the lead-up to Christmas.
Would have been a more reasonable deal if LEGO added something extra (maybe a Susie Wolff figure?) since this is otherwise inevitably poor value, based on the car's real world small size compared to other Speed Champions subjects.
@fredrigl said:
"While the car has a couple of new tile/slope variations, it still appears to not use the new front axle parts, and the rear axle too seems less sophisticated than the newer F1 cars. This seems like an odd step backwards, as if the car was designed way before the current F1 cars."
....or is it designed for people who just aren't quite ready for F1? ;-)
(though I guess they couldn't use the new fron suspension pieces since those have the deflector on it, which F4 cars don't have)
@Zordboy said:
"In my local area, all the department stores are still sitting on giant piles of the Speed Champions F1 car range (that was released earlier in the year), that are all just sitting there gathering dust. I thought about buying one or two, just for the sheer novelty of it (given that a lot of them are now on clearance and still aren't shifting), but just looking at all the stickers, on the cover art, gives me anxiety.
I get the feeling that the F1 cars weren't as popular as Lego was hoping they would be. It'll be interesting to see how many get sold in the lead-up to Christmas. "
Over here for a while the RB was consistently sold out in most shops, for obvious reasons. And I'd think the Ferrari, McLaren and maybe Mercedes would also sell pretty well. But how many people would be interested in like a Haas, Sauber or Alpine? I'd guess mostly completionists who want the entire grid....
(even when the current season is a blast in large part because of the "lesser" teams)
And for the last couple of months they have consistently been on discount on both Amazon and Bol, for about €15 to €18. And that includes the ever so popular RB.....
That's also the only one I got, and I hated building it. Way too many way too tiny stickers that needed to be aligned way too accurately. Took me three weeks to finish the darn thing, and I have honestly considered giving up on it entirely. I don't like stickers but can usually get myself over it, but this one just hit different....
Gotta wonder if this one is gonna do better....who watches F4 Academy anyway?
Yawn. Whatever. I like the "32" on it.
@ALegoFan said:
" @matrox2001 said:
"Look mum, Lego have released another car!
no, you already have lots of Lego cars...."
But this one has printed Lego tiles on them! It's completely different!"
I said NO and No means No….
I’ve been ignoring the F1 stuff - even leaving aside that I’ve never enjoyed the sport, it makes for a tediously repetitive megatheme compared to Space, not to mention that a megatheme that they clearly don’t feel works for Friends seems inappropriate to begin with, *and also* I’m sorry for the F1 fangirls who didn’t get any Friends sets to match their other minidoll kits - and I’m rather annoyed that I quite like this one. It’s just so colourful and bright and cheerful.
When will enough be enough and when will we see an end to this madness? How many LEGO F1 cars is too many? LEGO won't release individual train cars because of "cannibalizing sales", but something like 12 practically-identical-in-most-respects F1 cars is okay?! I guess F1 paid them boatloads of money to do this, and they're plowing through the sets no matter what.
This tickles my gotta-catch-em-all mentality that goes all the way back to Pokemon and Bionicle. I'll probably get this, the F1 Movie car, and the rumored Audi. Only on discount, of course. An especially big discount for this one, even though I appreciate how distinct it is from this year's F1 cars.
I like the DOTS-esque styling for the "32."
@ALegoFan said:
" @matrox2001 said:
"Look mum, Lego have released another car!
no, you already have lots of Lego cars...."
But this one has printed Lego tiles on them! It's completely different!"
There's also a couple of new pieces!
@Clutch_P said:
" @magmafrost said:
"THE WEDGE TILE IS REAL"
I cannot even express how long I've waited for that piece"
This honestly changes a lot. My excitement is overwhelming!
@fredrigl said:
"While the car has a couple of new tile/slope variations, it still appears to not use the new front axle parts, and the rear axle too seems less sophisticated than the newer F1 cars. This seems like an odd step backwards, as if the car was designed way before the current F1 cars."
It looks different because this is based on an F4 car, not an F1 car.
Glad to see lego doing an F1 car because the race series is really popular and we haven't had a lego F1 car ever before
The Delorean has a 156 more pieces, including another fig, so this being the same price as that is nuts
@Murdoch17 said:
"When will enough be enough and when will we see an end to this madness? How many LEGO F1 cars is too many? LEGO won't release individual train cars because of "cannibalizing sales", but something like 12 practically-identical-in-most-respects F1 cars is okay?! I guess F1 paid them boatloads of money to do this, and they're plowing through the sets no matter what."
I can only guess that they sell, and that they sell well. They are obviously also keen to get their advertising into the real races and no doubt selling toy versions helps grease those wheels.
@Milocubed said:
"Glad to see lego doing an F1 car because the race series is really popular and we haven't had a lego F1 car ever before"
It’s not an F1 car.
@gunther_schnitzel said:
" @Milocubed said:
"Glad to see lego doing an F1 car because the race series is really popular and we haven't had a lego F1 car ever before"
It’s not an F1 car."
Considering the number of F1 cars Lego released this year, I have a feeling the whole remark was meant as sarcasm anyway......
ME: "Well, at least they can't complain about having a female minifig for this one!"
EVERYONE: "Too many F1 cars! Too many cars in Speed Champions! LEGO betrayed their sustainability goals with this partnership! Too expensive! No ADDITIONAL minifig?"
Typical day on Brickset!
Awww, it looks so cute.
For the love of god.
JFC just don't buy them if you don't want another car. The theme is Speed Champions.
I saw these images and thought "Nice looking car. Wow, that's a lot of prints." And yet, there are still people in here insufferably whining. I, for one, look forward to buying this and placing it next to my 10 F1 cars, as well as adding any additional that come after, much to the chagrin of many.
Excuse me for not seeing this is an F4 car when there is not a single mention of it in the press release and even the sets name contains "F1". I am so ignorant and dumb for not being an expert like you guys.
Got to get this. It's not the best in terms of PpP but it looks great and will sit nicely with my Williams and Mercedes cars, plus as a fan/supporter of F1 Academy and Susie Wolff I just gotta.