After a brief pitstop, it’s time to continue the reviews of the newly released LEGO® Speed Champions F1 sets. Each team featured in the 2024 Championship is represented by a detailed mini-replica of its car and livery. Many of them offered the first time a particular car brand has appeared in a LEGO set. But that’s not the case with Williams Racing. The race team first appeared in a LEGO set in 2002 under the LEGO Racers brand. Two sets were released, including a large-scale car similar to the recently released Icons set and a smaller car similar to a LEGO City vehicle. The iconic British race team are featured in four different sets in the F1 Collection, including this Speed Champions offering. Here’s a closer look at the Williams Racing FW46 F1 Race Car set.
Product Details
Set Name: Williams Racing FW46 F1® Race Car | Set Number: 77249 | Pieces: 263 | Theme: Speed Champions
Number of Bags: Bags x 6 | Instructions: Paper booklet + Builder App | Stickers: sheet x 1 | Characters: Williams Driver
RRP: £22.99/$26.99/26.99€/39.99AUD/34.99CAD
Availability: LEGO Stores, Online & LEGO retailers
Williams Racing has been a part of F1 for many years. When they first began racing, they failed to make much of an impact, but that all changed during the 1980s and ’90s. They would be one of just a few teams to win both the Driver and Constructor Championships in the same season on more than one occasion.
The Williams car has around the same about of stickers as other sets in the collection. However, they offer some usual colour mixes. Most of the stickers and sponsor logos match the base colours of the car. The splash of purple on the rear of the spoiler seems out of place but blends in surprisingly well. There are a couple of awkward stickers, especially those on the sloping, angled bricks behind the cool Duracell-branded inlet.
The Williams car offers another unique build. Although the front section of the car and the spoiler are the same across all of the sets, the body section is where the cars differ. For this set, it has curved panels on the around where the driver sits, but in stark contrast, the rear section is quite angular. These are topped by a sloping engine cover, which has a couple of tricky stickers on it.
All of the F1 cars have a unique air inlet mounted behind the driver and used to cool the car’s powerful engines. The Williams car has the best of any F1 inlet. One of the team’s sponsors, battery maker Duracell, is featured on the car. But instead of just featuring its logo, the inlet has been crafted to look like an oversized Duracell battery. It’s a fun feature of the real car, and it looks great on its brick-built counterpart.
Unlike the retro Icons Williams set, the minifigure driver in this set is far less famous and lacks a fine moustache. It’s another female driver. Due to the team’s race colours, it’s quite a plain minifigure. I think that all of the Speed Champions F1 minifigures could have been a little more exciting. Not necessarily by having team sponsors plastered all over the outfit, but more link to the team sport from just a tiny logo. At least it has a unique helmet.
Williams is one of those teams with a long history with F1. During their heyday in the ’80s and ’90s, they were a force to be reckoned with. Their winnings ways have slowed in recent years, but the design of livery of their cars is still quite cool, especially with that funky Durecell inlet. The result is one of the best Speed Champions F1 sets. The entire LEGO F1 Collection of sets, including the Speed Champions sets, are available now.
Read other LEGO Speed Champions F1 Reviews: Ferrari SF-24| Oracle Red Bull | Mercedes-AMG | Aston Martin AMR24 | VCARB 01 | KICK Sauber | BWT Alpine
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The LEGO Group provided this set to BricksFanz.com for review purposes. The thoughts expressed in this review are those of BricksFanz.com and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group or F1. Providing the set for free does not guarantee a favourable opinion.
