It’s that time of the year when all the Formula 1 teams reveal their cars for the upcoming season. McLaren’s MCL36 is not due to be unveiled until February 11, but the car has managed to get leaked in a rather unexpected way: with a Lego model.
This all started with a tweet from Lego last week, which showed an F1 car-shaped mass under a tarp with an accompanying miniature version under its own little cloth, both sitting in the hall of McLaren’s MTC overlooking the lake.
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Under wraps… but not for much longer! Soon we’ll reveal the LEGO Technic @McLarenF1! 🤩#McLaren #LEGOTechnic #F1 pic.twitter.com/gnVTnTSF7b
— LEGO (@LEGO_Group) February 4, 2022
The tweet read: “Under wraps… but not for much longer! Soon we’ll reveal the LEGO Technic”, which confirmed prior speculation that Lego would release a large-scale Technic model of a McLaren Formula 1 car. Shortly after, McLaren posted an accompanying tweet with driver Lando Norris peering under the miniature tarp, reading: “What are you hiding, @LandoNorris?” Through those two tweets, it was easy to be deduce that McLaren would likely reveal the Lego kit alongside the full-size car on February 11.
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However, after all of that, uncovered photos of the kit (presumably from leaked press material) were posted to Reddit. The photos show Norris and teammate Daniel Ricciardo inspecting and playing with the Lego model, which, based on its design, appears to be the 2022 car wearing the team’s signature blue and orange livery.
Obviously this doesn’t tell us exactly what the real car will look like, but it should give us a good idea of the general shape, as well as what direction they’ve gone in with their livery design for this season. There’s only one way to know for sure, though, and it’ll be when they McLaren takes the wraps off the car on Friday.
