Set Review ➟ LEGO® Speed Champions 77252 APXGP Team Race Car
Release Date: 1 January 2026
Price: £22.99 / $27.99 / €27.99 / NZ$44.99
If ten Speed Champions F1 cars weren’t enough for you in 2025, we’re about to get at least one more—the APXGP Team Race Car from the F1 movie. (Technically, the real cars used in the film were highly modified F2 cars, but they were resized and reshaped to be all but indistinguishable.) I thought the film was fun and entertaining despite some inaccuracies obvious to any F1 fan (though perhaps the Lego version makes a 10 minute rear wing replacement possible!), and as someone who collected all previous F1 cars I sure don’t mind getting another. Plus we get two minifigures here, representing both actors/drivers. The car certainly looks striking in black and gold livery, reminiscent of Senna’s 1986 JPS Lotus 98T.
The box contains four bags, an additional bag for the chassis and wheels, building instructions, and a sizable sticker sheet (standard for these sponsored F1 cars). In contrast with the three 2026 hypercars, I’m pleased to say that the minifigures here are fantastic. The torso prints are detailed, the heads (double sided—with or without sunglasses—for both) are passable likenesses for actors Brad Pitt and Damson Idris, and the two signed helmets are excellent.
The build itself presents few surprises—if you’ve built any of the previous ten F1 cars then you know what you’re in for. As with those, you get a stock front and rear with unique design work for the sidepods and bargeboards. The latter here are quite prominent, while the sidepods are fairly bulky and feature a brick-built gold stripe below printed curved slopes. Again we get the clever techniques of spoon wing mirrors and a gold ski in the engine cover.
There are several blue parts you might wish to swap out as you build, one of which was annoyingly visible through the engine cover. In addition to the 27 stickers there are also 13 printed elements (plus the tires). These include the nose slope, steering wheel, sidepod curved slopes (those used on the Icons Shelby Cobra), “AMG” 1x4 curved bricks, “SharkNinja” wedge slopes on the engine cover, useful 1x1 vent tiles, the standard not-a-brake-light at the back, and a printed 1x2 ingot as an alternate T-cam for your second driver.
The print quality is good, and the sponsored areas (both stickered and printed) also feature a fine dot-matrix silver pattern that is easy to miss from any distance, but which adds some texture and detail. One drawback is that without stickers applied, the livery does seem to stop rather abruptly halfway along the car. The one entirely new element is a gold 2x2 quarter-circle plate, used in the sidepod striping.
So is the APXGP F1 set worth getting? I can see how not being based on a real F1 team may make it an easy pass for some. But the design meets the same high standard as the previous F1 cars, while for fans of the film the two minifigures are likely to be the real draw—and these minifigures are both excellent. The only thing missing is perhaps a black 3x4 CMF plate to display your number-two driver. Now you can reenact your favourite suicidal overtake around the outside of Curva Parabolica, or have both drivers start table-pounding while chanting “Combat, combat…”
# We wish to thank LEGO for providing this set for review. The opinions in this review are not supported or endorsed by LEGO.
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