Review: 77258 F1 ACADEMY LEGO Race Car
Posted by CapnRex101,
The LEGO Group is sponsoring a car in the 2026 F1 Academy season, so it was no surprise to see a Speed Champions version of this car unveiled alongside the real thing. The colourful design certainly catches the eye, whether at full-size or minifigure scale.
Moreover, I think 77258 F1 ACADEMY LEGO Race Car captures the shape of F1 Academy cars faithfully, distinct from prior Formula 1 models. On the other hand, the set only contains 201 pieces, fewer than most other Speed Champions cars, but still costs £22.99, $27.99 or €27.99.
Summary
77258 F1 ACADEMY LEGO Race Car, 201 pieces.
£22.99 / $27.99 / €27.99 | 11.4p, 13.9c, 13.9c per piece.
Buy at LEGO.com »
The LEGO F1 Academy car is well-executed at minifigure scale, but very expensive
- Accurate bodywork shape and livery
- Striking colour scheme
- Lots of printed parts
- Much simpler than other sets and therefore overpriced
- Missing a few details
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
Minifigure
Speed Champions sets have occasionally included minifigures based on real drivers and this is another. Esmee Kosterman will drive the LEGO-sponsored car in the 2026 F1 Academy season and this minifigure looks superb, more detailed than many others available in Speed Champions sets recently.
I like how the racing number and other accents on the racing suit are designed to match LEGO 1x1 tiles, with similar details on the helmet. Moreover, the alternative hair element bears a fairly close resemblance to Kosterman's real hairstyle. A silver wrench is included, as usual.
Reference
Source - LEGO.com/newsroom
The Completed Model
F1 Academy is a one-make racing series, so every driver uses the same car, designed around the Tatuus F4-T421 chassis produced for Formula 4. This model captures its shape accurately, particularly around the nose, which abruptly changes from horizontal to a downward slope, like on the real car. The bodywork shaping as a whole looks simpler than in Formula 1.
LEGO presumably had significant control over the car's livery, as its main sponsor, so I wonder whether the translation to a LEGO model was taken into consideration at all. They could surely have made it simpler, if so, though I like the combination of yellow, magenta and medium azure, which looks accurate overall.
This car is shorter than its Formula 1 counterparts, accurately, but employs many of the same building techniques. Its proportions look brilliant and the designers have definitely managed to illustrate the differences between F1 and F1 Academy cars.
Notable among these differences is the shape of the nose and front wing. As mentioned above, the change from horizontal to sloped bodywork looks perfect, actually integrating a new curved wedge slope, available in both new Speed Champions sets. I wish the 1x4 slope that forms the nose had been printed, but the stickered stripes on the wing are still fairly accurate.
The new 2x2 curved wedge slope is printed, as are the 2x3 tile and 4x4 wedge plate behind it. All these decorations match the original car, featuring the same 1x1 tile motif as the minifigure. The wheels look great too, lacking the standard wheel inserts, so the texture inside is exposed and looks realistic, once again.
The cockpit is very familiar, with a flexible hose forming the halo and spoons for the mirrors on either side. Seating the minifigure inside is a tight squeeze, so you need to raise her arms, but the driver looks fine once in place. The bodywork on the sidepods could be cleaner though, as features like the air intakes on the front are barely recognisable.
The black, magenta and medium azure stripes look fantastic behind the cockpit, using a mix of printed parts and brick building, but no stickers here! Otherwise, the airbox is assembled much like 76919 2023 McLaren Formula 1 Car and a few subsequent sets, with a ski accessory fixed between 2x5 wedge slopes to form a fin.
Another distinctive feature of F1 Academy cars is the rear wing, which has a very simple shape. The 2x2 wedge tiles on either end are new pieces found in multiple Speed Champions sets this year, with stickers on those and the tiles in between. The protruding warning light under the rear wing is missing though, which is a strange omission.
Overall
I always have high expectations for Speed Champions and 77258 F1 ACADEMY LEGO Race Car is a nice addition to the selection, albeit nothing too remarkable. The shaping and colours are excellent and I was pleasantly surprised that only thirteen stickers are required, as it looks like there could be many more. Fortunately, there are lots of printed elements.
I criticised 77259 Audi Revolut F1 Team R26 Race Car for seeming like a step backwards from past LEGO F1 cars. You could potentially say the same here, but I think it works for the simpler F1 Academy chassis. This price, however, does not work whatsoever. £22.99, $27.99 or €27.99 feels way too expensive for such a relatively simple model, despite its appealing design.
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17 comments on this article
The only thing that amuses me here is the thought that the Ninjago-characters would comfortably use a pair of these cars as rollerskates for their mechs.
13 stickers?
Luckily I‘m not superstitious!
Looks good with the exception of the rear wing and diffuser area.
@UProbeck said:
"13 stickers?
Luckily I‘m not superstitious!"
Good thing this wasn't review was released last Friday, (the13th) as then it would have been doubly unlucky!
Everything is back as it should be.
Spielberg is releasing a Sci-Fi movie.
America is doing some dumb %$&.
Brickset is reviewing F1.
As usual with Speed Champions these days, I'll wait for it to go on sale first. I do love them, though!
"Seating the minifigure inside is a tight squeeze" is a very polite way of saying you have to force the minifig in whilst trying not to pop some of the details off! I think LEGO did a pretty poor job with the cockpit on this set, it's too cramped and flimsy, the vertical assemblies holding the mirrors are quite easy to pop off. I don't know how they could have improved it, just that I know it's quite delicate.
I'm glad I have this set, it's something i want to support, I just think the build itself is not the best.
It occurs to me that, while the color scheme feels more attuned to girls themes like Friends and Elves, it also matches the colors of printer ink (CMYK). I'm just not sure why they would intentionally try to do that. Or if they even did.
I actually really like this set. While I do love the intricate and complex builds in other Speed Champions sets, this one grabs my attention because its so simple and effective. I just love to grab it and zoom it across my table compared to the bigger and more fragile SC F1 cars because its solid and far less prone to falling apart.
I think Lego captured the shape of a little junior open wheel car much better than it has the F1 cars. When I built it, I remarked that it is just a really good and cute Lego-fied version of an open wheel racing car. Top marks for that.
In assessing the cost of this car, nobody can fully state that it has low value for money with the abundance of printed pieces that Lego has given us. Parts per piece is such a simplistic and flawed way to calculate these things. If there were twice the amount of stickers the primary complaint would be the huge sticker sheet. You can't have it both ways!
As always, set value is entirely dependant on how much I personally like it, and I like this one a lot, so price was fine!
@Rare_White_Ape said:
"Parts per piece is such a simplistic and flawed way to calculate these things."
Every metric is flawed, unless you can get your hands on Cost To Produce numbers direct from TLG. PPP just happens to be the most objective option left to us, but it does require observant qualification. Very large parts, exclusive parts, prints, minifigs, and especially bigfigs, all throw the math off and have to be accounted for. But weight only accounts for large parts and fails to factor in the cost to produce the smallest parts in favor of assuming the mass of plastic (the dirt-cheapest component of the equation) is everything. And "Price Per Stuff" is nothing but subjective, as "stuff" can't even be cleanly defined. I've seen PPS champions gush over sets with objectively terrible PPP solely because it was a theme they favored, while also blasting sets with fantastic PPP because the set included parts they didn't want and felt it was unfair to ask them to pay for (even though the PPP excluding those parts was still favorable). Too often, as well, we see people complain that a set is overpriced simply because it sits way outside of their price range. Just because you can't afford it doesn't mean it's not a fantastic value for the price. If they produced a $1000 set that included 100,000pcs, the fan community would be split between those who complained that it was too overpriced and those who were falling over themselves to buy a copy.
@Rare_White_Ape said:
"In assessing the cost of this car, nobody can fully state that it has low value for money with the abundance of printed pieces that Lego has given us. Parts per piece is such a simplistic and flawed way to calculate these things. If there were twice the amount of stickers the primary complaint would be the huge sticker sheet. You can't have it both ways!"
I think the best judgement of value in this situation is by comparing this set to others from Speed Champions. Many of them contain a significant number of printed pieces, so I think the F1 Academy car offers relatively poor value, just like 77256 Time Machine from Back to the Future offers relatively good value.
As usual though, these things depend to a degree on how much an individual likes the set and I like it, but I do not love it, as it sounds like you do.
@CapnRex101 said:
" @Rare_White_Ape said:
"In assessing the cost of this car, nobody can fully state that it has low value for money with the abundance of printed pieces that Lego has given us. Parts per piece is such a simplistic and flawed way to calculate these things. If there were twice the amount of stickers the primary complaint would be the huge sticker sheet. You can't have it both ways!"
I think the best judgement of value in this situation is by comparing this set to others from Speed Champions. Many of them contain a significant number of printed pieces, so I think the F1 Academy car offers relatively poor value, just like 77256 Time Machine from Back to the Future offers relatively good value.
As usual though, these things depend to a degree on how much an individual likes the set and I like it, but I do not love it, as it sounds like you do."
And then you have 77237, which doesn't have very many printed pieces, but doesn't have a single sticker.
Ridiculous price
How can this set cost more than 15 bucks?
15 bucks for 200 measy and small parts should be list price. Of course it should be!
If you buy this, you are not only part of the price problem, you are the reason for the price problem.
Technically speaking: if technic pins (actually a quite complex part to mould) can sell for 0.01 then why can any of these pieces cost more than, say, that times five to be generous, or 0.05?
@ulibu said:
"How can this set cost more than 15 bucks?
15 bucks for 200 measy and small parts should be list price. Of course it should be!
If you buy this, you are not only part of the price problem, you are the reason for the price problem.
Technically speaking: if technic pins (actually a quite complex part to mould) can sell for 0.01 then why can any of these pieces cost more than, say, that times five to be generous, or 0.05?"
Cost to produce does not cleanly equate to value on the secondary market. Technic pins may require a complicated mold, but their production numbers don't match their demand. People who strictly build sets will use up all but a couple extras from every set they buy, but people who build MOCs will end up with buckets of pins they'll never use. Problem is, the people who buy parts also have buckets of those pins, so there's really nobody who will buy them unless there's something special about them.
Picked this one up at MSRP as it's just too nifty a livery to pass up. The price creep on the Speed Champion sets is a bit of a pit-off though. Getting too close to $30 and at that price there NEEDS to be a 2nd minifigure and small accessory build of some sort. Just my two cents.
Thanks for the excellent review!