Reveal: 77258 F1 ACADEMY™ LEGO® Race Car from LEGO® Speed Champions

Coming in March 2026 and available to pre-order now, LEGO® Speed Champions set 77258 F1 ACADEMY™ LEGO® Race Car has just been revealed. This is an especially exciting development, as it is based upon the real thing: The LEGO Group is to be represented on the F1 ACADEMY grid in the 2026 season by driver Esmee Kosterman, as part of a multi-year partnership between the two organisations. 

Even non-carheads like me are excited too because there's not one but three useful new moulds in the set – can you spot them too?

Products in this article were gifted by The LEGO Group; the author's opinions are their own.
This article contains affiliate links to LEGO.com; we may get a small commission if you purchase.

 77258 F1 ACADEMY™ LEGO® Race Car

• Release date: 1 March 2026, pre-order available now from the links below
• Pieces: 201
• Ages: 10+
• Measures: over 4 cm (1.5 in.) high, 18 cm (7 in.) long and 7 cm (2.5 in.) wide

Price and link to pre-order: 

• US$ 27.99 on LEGO.com US
• CA$ 34.99 on LEGO.com Canada
• GB£ 22.99 on LEGO.com UK
• AU$ 39.99 on LEGO.com Australia
• NZ$ 44.99 on LEGO.com New Zealand
• €27,99 on LEGO.com Deutschland, Nederland, France
• PLN 119.99 on LEGO.com Polska
• NOK 399,90 on LEGO.com Norge
• DKK 249.95 on LEGO.com Danmark

Other countries click here

 

Background

F1 ACADEMY is a single-seater racing series launched in 2023 to promote and boost female motorsport talent. The LEGO Group conducted research that discovered 75% of the 4000 girls aged between 9 and 16 (half in the US, half UK) surveyed think racing sounds exciting, while 52% could see themselves as a race car driver one day. Parents of girls in this age bracket were also surveyed, finding that 82% think it’s important for girls to see women represented in motorsport, but 76% think motorsport is often perceived as “more for boys”. We're a long way from 2012 LEGO® Friends!

The LEGO Group will be on the grid next year as LEGO® Racing, with a livery created by the LEGO Design team! The "32" refers to the company's founding year, 1932.

Now let's examine what is new within the tie-in set featuring the F4 car and Esmee Kosterman minifigure.

New moulds

Lovers of 1:2 ratio diagonals (and let's face it, who isn't) have three reasons to be happy about the new LEGO shapes coming in this set!

Tile 2 x 2 with 27° Wedge

At last, what builders have long been asking for! 

2x2 tiles with a 1:2 ratio diagonal cut across one corner are introduced here in both left and right versions, in black and we suspect also magenta. The black ones are stickered with the "32" livery, so happily you can choose to avoid the decals and use them elsewhere!

The new mould is the tile version of Wedge Plate 2 x 2 (Right 24307, Left 24299) shown above left, and therefore matches the diagonal of many other LEGO bricks including the other two plates above, Wedge Plate 2 x 4 27° (Right 65426, Left 65429) and Wedge Plate 2 x 4 (51739).

This is great news for fans of the reflected triangle technique, with more tiles now in your arsenal! But wait, there's more... An even more intriguing mould with the same diagonal is used on the nose of the car.

Slope Curved 2 x 2 with 27° Double Wedge 

This curved 2x2x⅔ slope tapers from 2 modules wide at the back and in the middle to 1 module at the front, which is unusual – and useful. It means it lines up with pieces that are offset, for example by using a jumper plate. Indeed, it is used for this purpose in the set, with a centred back slope sitting in front.

The diagonals traverse 1 module by 0.5 modules, meaning they too are 1:2 ratio wedges. This reminds me of Wedge Plate 3 x 4 (90194), shown below left. Although you couldn't align these 

It shares the same height – two plates – with several other 2x2 pieces, most notably Slope Curved 2 x 2 x 2/3 Pointed (66956, above centre) which is identical except the 45° wedges are 27° in the new piece. read Zach's analysis of LEGO part 66956.

Another recent addition to this family of 2-plate-high curved slopes is Brick Curved 2 x 2 with Curved Front, 2 Studs (7037, above right), which some builders found annoying for its inclusion of studs on top. No such issue with the new piece! Read Tom's analysis of LEGO part 7037.

There are some much older 2x2x⅔ pieces worth mentioning too. 

You may be most familiar with the blue piece above, Brick Curved 2 x 2 x 2/3 Two Studs and Curved Slope End (47457) which was introduced back in 2004 in LEGO® Knights Kingdom II figures. Even more similar is the red one, Brick Curved 2 x 2 x 2/3 Two Studs and Lip End (41855) from LEGO® Racers 2002 sets, but this went out of production in 2007.

If you're interested in the other strange 2x2 slopes in the picture above, check out Tom's historical LEGO Racers Xalax element analysis.

Other new elements

You will have noticed a plethora of decorated pieces on the car and minifigure: many stickered, some printed. As for recoloured elements, we've only spotted one so far.

Two 1x2 - 1x2 inverted brackets recoloured in magenta (99780) are used on the rear spoiler.

Can you see any more that we missed?

 

Pre-order now, US$27.99/ 27,99€/ £22.99

   

READ MORE: Review of the January LEGO® Speed Champions set 77255 Lightning McQueen

Help New Elementary keep publishing articles like this. Become a Patron!

A huge thank you to all our patrons for your support, especially our 'Vibrant Coral' tier: London AFOLs, Antonio Serra, Beyond the Brick, Huw Millington, Dave Schefcik, David and Breda Fennell, Gerald Lasser, Baixo LMmodels, Sue Ann Barber and Trevor Clark, Markus Rollbühler, Elspeth De Montes, Megan Lum, Andy Price, Chuck Hagenbuch, Jf, Wayne R. Tyler, Daniel Church, Lukas Kurth (StoneWars), Timo Luehnen, Chris Wight, Jonathan Breidert, Brick Owl, BrickCats, Erin and Dale, Thunderdave, Jake Forbes and our newest top-tier patron, H.Y. Leung! You folks are better than inverted cheese slopes.

All text and images are ©2025 New Elementary unless otherwise attributed.