Motor racing-It’s lights out and away they Lego for F1 drivers parade in Miami

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By Matthew Majendie

MIAMI (Reuters) -Formula One’s 20 drivers carried out a novel brick test when they took to the track in life-size two-seater cars made of Lego for a parade like no other ahead of Sunday’s Miami Grand Prix.

From champions and front-runners McLaren to backmarkers Sauber, each of the 10 electric cars reflected the team’s full liveries and sponsor logos and were equipped with actual Pirelli tyres.

Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc and George Russell were among those steering the cars with their teammates sitting behind them at the Hard Rock Stadium two hours prior to the grand prix.

The parade replaced the tradition of drivers gathering on the back of a flatbed truck to drive to wave to fans and be interviewed pre-race.

The near 1:1 creations are based on the Lego F1 Speed Champions range unveiled last year and have been designed in partnership between F1 and Lego, the Danish family-owned company famed for toy plastic bricks.

The cars, which boast a top speed of 20kph, were made by 26 designers, engineers and Lego builders at the company’s factory in Kladno in the Czech Republic.

Each one was constructed with 400,000 Lego bricks and weighed in at 1,000kg with a total of 22,000 hours spent on their builds.

Ferrari’s seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton called it the ‘most fun drivers’ parade we ever had’ while jokingly accusing Alpine driver Pierre Gasly of ‘dirty driving.

Red Bull’s reigning champion Verstappen, who will start Sunday’s race from pole position as television audiences hear Sky commentator David Croft’s familiar cry of ‘It’s lights out and away we go’, said the track would need sweeping.

“There’s quite a bit of Lego debris now on the track. A few cars collided along the way.

“I was just a bit slow on top speed,” he added. “So we slowly dropped back throughout the lap.”

(Editing by Pritha Sarkar)