LANDO NORRIS kept up his driving skills by driving a unique McLaren P1.
The British driver will be hoping to close the gap to Formula One championship leader Max Verstappen at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix this weekend.
In the meantime, Norris got back behind the wheel at Silverstone as he took out a McLaren P1 supercar, which can sell for around £800,000.
However, the vehicle the 24-year-old drove out with had some strikingly different mechanics to a usual P1.
The main difference being… it was made out of LEGO.
Lego Technic recently launched a model of the McLaren P1 at a 1:8 scale as part of their sponsorship agreement with the car manufacturer.
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But they have now outdone themselves after creating a to-scale version of the car.
Indeed, only the electric battery, the tyres, seatbelt, steering wheel, and brakes are made of real parts, with the rest of the car being made with Lego bricks.
Constructed in Czechia, the full-scale car features 342,000 Lego parts pulled from 393 different LEGO Technic elements.
It weighs in at a staggering 1220kg overall – some 270kg lighter than the real-life P1 – and took 23 people 8,344 hours, or 347 days and 16 hours, of development.
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Tasks in the process included creating fully functional steering and integrated suspension to put into the car to make it driveable, while according to Planet F1, the exterior was made with extra rigidity in mind.
In a video shared to McLaren’s YouTube channel, Norris was taken aback when first saw the car, admitting: ” Oh God, I’m nervous now.”
However, the two-time F1 race winner managed to complete a successful lap around the Silverstone circuit, with the battery able to take the car up to speeds of almost 40mph.
Norris was pleasantly surprised by the car’s handling, saying: “It actually drives pretty good.
“It felt like a car, the steering I thought was pretty good. Copse, I did it flat, the old wing mirrors flapped a little bit – I thought I should stay off the kerbs here! It’s mint.”
F1 2025 grid
Here are the confirmed driver line ups for the F1 2025 season so far:
Red Bull: Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez
Ferrari: Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes: George Russell and Kimi Antonelli
McLaren: Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri
Aston Martin: Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll
Williams: Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz
Sauber: Nico Hulkenberg and TBC
Alpine: Pierre Gasly and Jack Doohan
RB: Yuki Tsunoda and TBC
Haas: Ollie Bearman and Esteban Ocon
🏁 Complete F1 2024 race calendar – details on every Grand Prix and start time this year 🏁
Lubor Zelinka, The LEGO Group’s Design Manager Specialist said: “It’s quite an accomplishment, I’m so proud that me and part of our team can be here – and it feels great. It’s just a beautiful sight.
“We had great collaboration [with McLaren] throughout the whole thing, we had the full 3D digital package for the car, unprecedented access to their engineering team, some time on their computer actually simulating our assumptions and ideas about a drivetrain on the virtual Silverstone track.
“Overall, they were a great partner, down to actually gifting us a set of wheels and tyres and other parts from the real P1 to accomplish this.”
Savage sackings in F1
THE world of F1 can be savage, with employees discarded like used tea bags.
Danish driver Kevin Magnussen was a rising star of the McLaren team when he made his debut in 2014 alongside Jensen Button.
But when he finished the season trailing in eleventh place, he was swiftly replaced by two-time World Champion Fernando Alonso.
Instead of breaking the bad news to him in a face-to-face meeting, boss Ron Dennis got his assistant to send Magnussen a short and impersonal email.
Worst still, the curt message landed in Kevin’s inbox on his 23rd birthday.
Read more tales of F1’s brutal world including one boss who was labelled an ‘executioner’ and a driver dumped by a brisk TEXT.
Source: Motorsport - thesun.co.uk
