In a partnership launched this year with Formula 1, the Lego Group has gone full throttle to integrate its brand into the sport. Its family-friendly “Build the Thrill” activations have been popping up at U.S. F1 races, with the first taking place at the Miami Grand Prix and the next two coming to Austin, TX, this month and Las Vegas in November. But Lego recently went “off track” to two cities that aren’t on the global F1 race calendar… yet.
In July, Lego brought its free Formula 1 Off Track experience to Symphony Park in Charlotte, NC, and then to Chicago’s Pioneer Court over Labor Day weekend. Repping their favorite teams and drivers on hats and tees, F1 fans of all ages explored eight Build the Thrill Play Zones, which were designed with the 6- to 12-year-old demographic in mind.
At the Race Lab, they could build and customize a mini Lego racecar and then head over to the Wind Tunnel to test their vehicle’s aerodynamics in a simulation modeled after those used by F1 teams. Thrill City Circuit was the proving ground for the mini racecars, and action cameras captured the laps on video in real time.
Product displays included the latest sets from Lego Speed Champions, Lego Technic, Lego Icons and Lego Duplo, while a Graffiti Wall invited attendees to add a brick-built creation to the collaborative art piece. The racing experience wouldn’t be complete without snapping a photo for a Lego Formula 1 driver’s license or joining a pit crew for time-based pit stop games.
“Certainly, there were moms and dads who were taking their kids along because they have a massive passion for sport, but actually, I think one of the most amazing things was the amount of young people who are into Formula 1 as a sport now,” says Pieter Graham, director-U.S. earned media and events at the Lego Group. “Especially in Chicago, I saw so many team jerseys, and we saw that the majority of people had seen [the event] through social media and traditional media posts and wanted to come down to the experience and show off their colors.”
In 2024, Formula 1 released data showing this explosive growth in popularity among younger fans: More than 4 million children ages 8 to 12 now actively follow the sport across Europe and the U.S., and 40 percent of F1’s Instagram followers are younger than 25.
Just over 1,000 people a day visited the Chicago stop of the Lego Formula 1 Off Track activation, and Graham says he heard from some attendees that they had driven two or three hours to experience it.
“One of the learnings is just the level of popularity and the lines. The queues that we’ve seen have been absolutely crazy, so maybe we need to have more and bigger lines,” he says.
Lego made headlines in May when it revamped the traditional drivers’ parade at the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix, providing all 10 F1 teams with fully drivable Lego big build cars. The always-competitive F1 drivers got behind the wheel of the custom vehicles, each built out of 400,000 Lego bricks, and raced one another at top speeds of 20 kph, while waving to fans around the 5.4-kilometer track.
That’s still one of Graham’s top standout moments from Lego’s F1 partnership, and this traveling activation is continuing to add to the hype. In fact, the Lego Formula 1 Red Bull Racing big build from the drivers’ parade was on display at the activation in Chicago.
“The Miami, Austin and Vegas races you can attend as a fan, but lots of people don’t get the opportunity to. It’s hard to get a ticket, but there’s a huge fan group in each of those cities who are really interested in getting involved in the sport,” he says. “Initially, we looked at how we could take the passion and culture of F1 off track, effectively, and into what we call ‘Build the Thrill’ of letting fans take their imagination beyond the race. While it’s great to do it in cities where the races are, we thought we could go wider than that to engage with that fan base and build that excitement.” Agency: XD Agency.
Photo credit: Mikhail Arzumanov
