For F1 and Lego fans this huge new McLaren kit is a must-buy

As a fan of both Formula One and Lego, seeing the two brands come together in the last few years has filled me with joy.

Who could forget the full-size Lego cars racing ahead of last year’s Miami GP? Even the brake marker boards at the Austrian GP, resembling blocks of Lego, was a delight to see. And of course there are the new Lego F1 kits. You can buy a full grid of 1:24 scale cars, plus even the Apex GP team car from F1: The Movie, and most recently the Lego-branded Formula Academy racer.

Then there are the Lego Technic kits. Renowned for their size, price and complexity, the Technic family has included the off F1 car for years now, but for the last couple of seasons their quality, realism and attention to detail has reached a new level. And so too has Lego’s ability to back a winner, since this year’s star car is the McLaren MCL39 – winner in 2025 of both the Constructors’ Championship and, with driver Lando Norris, the Drivers’ Championship.

The kit follows in the Pirelli tyre tracks of last year’s Ferrari and Red Bull. Priced at £199.99 here in the UK ($229.99 in the US) and available since 1 March, the MCL39 kit is 1:8 scale and comprises 1,675 pieces, plus a comprehensive set of stickers to faithfully recreate the double-championship-winning livery.

I’d previously built Lego’s smaller F1 cars, with both the 1:24 scale 2023 Ferrari and approximately 1:18 scale 1988 McLaren MP4/4, so was excited to finally try out the bigger format. In fact, I would almost certainly have bought the MCL39 car myself, until Lego kindly suggested sending one for this review.

As with any Lego kit of this size, there’s a lot to take in. But the instructions are as clear as ever, and the 10 bags of pieces are clearly labelled. I mostly assembled this kit on the lounge floor, but if you put the smaller components of each bag into a couple of bowls as you go, I can see this coming together on a relatively small table just fine.

Comprising 546 steps across 362 pages, the instructions might seem intimidating for builders used to the smaller F1 kits. But none of the steps are particularly complex, and while I had to rewind a couple of times I’ll blame that on being distracted by the television. Some steps require a closer look to understand precisely where each part goes – and make sure to double-check orientation when components are flipped around between stages – but for anyone familiar with a Technic kit this will all feel familiar.

I particularly enjoyed how the suspension and power unit came together. The former includes a set of springs to give the car independent push-rod and pull-rod suspension, just like the real thing, and the way it sits when complete is especially satisfying. So too is the engine, with its six cylinders moving up and down as the rear wheels rotate.

There’s a gearbox too, of sorts. A lever beneath the left-off engine cover clicks through low gear, neutral and high gear with a push, changing the speed of the engine relative to how quickly the rear wheels turn (or how quickly you push it across the carpet…). It’s a nice detail, but strangely this lever is also attached to the DRS flap of the rear wing.

This isn’t at all how the rear car works, but I appreciate what Lego has done here. Push the lever to the higher gear, and the DRS opens as it would in a high-speed section of the race track. It neatly combines two mechanisms into one, but might annoy an F1 engineering purist.

Elsewhere, the front wheels can be turned by either the steering wheel in the cockpit, or via a gear that protrudes discretely from behind the roll hoop.

The livery is very good, with each sticker easy to apply. I really like how accurate this car looks. It’s still obviously a Lego kit and not an ultra-realistic model from Amalgam or Pocher, but to my eyes it looks much more realistic than some of the supercar Technic kits do.

Gaps beneath the side pods let it down slightly, the rear end could perhaps be a little tidier – and, yes, Lego still hasn’t fixed the ongoing F1 Technic issue of the front and rear tyres being the same width. The smaller, simpler and much cheaper F1 Speed Champions kit gets this detail correct, so why can’t a Technic car costing almost 10x the price?

That gripe aside, the MCL39 is a fabulous kit that’s still a lot of fun to build and display, either on its own, alongside a couple of smaller F1 models, or as part of a complete hybrid-era collection with the Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari too.