One of my favourite builds in a very long time. The McLaren F1 car looks amazing completed and was a really engaging build process throughout.

A high level of detail has gone into the build process, especially around the engine and suspension set-ups which was enjoyable to construct and apply some more "Technic specific" skills. The designers have done a superb job capturing the essence of the car and the details within the shaping to keep the overall sleek, aerodynamic look.

I know some take umbrage at the level of stickers in the higher priced sets, and whilst I agree that printed panels always look the best the stickers for this set were not too much of a pain despite there being quite a few to apply. They do give the car a much more realistic appearance and that killer finer details to make it really stand out in the display. My only grip would be the car coming with "wet weather" tries, a set of slicks would give it that one final element of perfection in my opinion.

Overall, I really like the look of the set and had a lot of fun in building this. So much so that the new Technic Mercedes is the dominant fixture at the top of the want list for 2024!

As a display model it looks amazing overall, and I love looking at it. I think the price is very reasonable considering the number of pieces the set is, that it's officially licensed by McLaren, and how great it looks. One thing I noticed about this model that I really appreciated is that the shapes are all created by rigid elements, with none of that flex axle bs that's so common on Technic models. So it actually looks substantial without that weird wire frame look.

I originally expected the F1 car to be 1:10 scale, but it turns out it's actually 1:8. It's huge. It's longer than the Lamborghini Sian.

It's a very impressive looking model, and overall I really like it a lot, but I do have a few complaints:

- The biggest complaint I have is regarding the steering. The steering wheel gear and the main steering shaft gears are directly meshed, which means that when the wheels are straight the steering wheel isn't straight. They should have found a way to solve this problem either by lowering the rack one height unit and inserted a gear in between the main shaft and the steering wheel, or raising the rack one height unit and connected the steering directly to the main shaft. It looks like there should be enough space to do either if they really tried.

- My second biggest complaint is that they used heavily treaded tires. It would have looked a lot better with slicks, or even the less grooved kind of sports car tires. Though the tires used on the model do have a rounder sidewall that looks more like an F1 tire, and I appreciate that they did use the blue sidewall color to mark it as a wet tire. But I think they should have taken this opportunity to revise the mold to make a slick. It shouldn't cost that much to keep the same overall shape but remove the tread. They probably would still have uses for it in the future, and I wouldn't have minded paying a little more for such a huge improvement in the end product.

- Third complaint is that the orange on the stickers don't match the orange of the Lego elements. The stickers are slightly darker. It's not that noticeable from a distance, but quite noticeable close up. It's not a huge deal, but a little annoying.

- Fourth complaint is that there is no transmission. I admit this one is a minor quibble, as it's mostly a display model, and it was probably wise to omit it to keep the price of the set down. But there is a gaping void under the engine of about 3 height units capable of accepting a simple maybe 2 or 3 speed transmission. But then it would be hard to fit any type of mechanism for a shifter in the tight cockpit. But it would have been cool if they found a way to do it.

This is my first review on here.

Where do I start? This was an incredible build, the largest Lego set I've built so far.

I took a picture after assembling every piece to make a stop-motion video, that video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XQFm8KsDNQ

While building, I noticed two errors with the instructions. The first was on page 144, step 152, sticker placement of sticker #36. It doesn't show it symmetrical with nearby sticker #40 applied at the same step. This is different from how it appears on the box, as well as how it appears with all steps after page 162 or step 174.

The second error appears near the very end, page 301, step 359, there are two winged pieces used, numbered 21 and 22, stickers get applied to them, in the image it labels both pieces as number 22. The stickers can only go one way, so you won’t get it wrong.

The tires are really disappointing, I wish they were slicks, or different sizes, or without the weird large wheel covers.

All in all, it's an incredible model, and I plan on hanging it on my wall vertically, alongside my GT3, Sian, and Bugatti.

This is Lego's Technic's first attempt at a licensed F1 car, and as a result, you can expect it to go through some growing pains as they figure things out and make improvements from one model to the next. We've had Technic F1 cars, but they were generic Lego creations, like set 8458 from 2000, and set 42000 from 2013. This set was the predecessor of set 42171, the Mercedes-AMG F1, and as I also own that set, I will compare the two in a lot of respects. This set has had many polarizing reviews, with many people criticizing it as overpriced and inaccurate, and many others praising it as an amazing display model. The truth, I think, is somewhere in the middle. Yes, it does have some obvious flaws, but it's also a very detailed and impressive Lego sculpture and uses some unexpected building techniques.

The parts are split into 4 roughly equal sections, each one taking 1–3 hours to complete, depending on how quickly you build your sets. Personally, I like to take my sweet time, since I think building is most of the fun. You're not really going to play with a set like this after completing it anyway. I think each section has a good number of parts for an enjoyable building process. The Mercedes splits the parts into 12 sections, which is unnecessarily too many. You get the same basic Technic functions as the Mercedes, such as working steering, engine, and differential. Realistic pushrod suspension converts vertical motion into lateral motion, which is pretty cool. The front shocks are permanently in a compressed position, which I think is a flawed design, as it'll probably wear them out faster. The Mercedes doesn't have this problem, as its shocks aren't put in a permanently compressed state. The steering has the same issue as the Mercedes, in that when the front tires are pointed forward, the steering wheel is not straight. This is because there are 8 tooth gears in the steering rack which don't allow both to be centered at the same time.

The bodywork and aero are depicted with a lot of detail, and although there are some obvious similarities between this set and the Mercedes, they use enough different parts and building techniques to not feel like clones of each other. The air intake is especially cleverly done, using small rods to reverse some small plates and make them face opposite directions. Notably, this set uses far more studded system pieces than the Mercedes, which uses far more Technic panels and axles. So which way is superior? Overall, the Mercedes probably is, as the higher usage of Technic parts makes its bodywork more sturdy. I do appreciate that this set uses a lot of black 2L axles, rather than the usual red ones, as color-wise the red would clash too much with the existing colors of this set. That's good attention to detail, important on a large and expensive display model. Unfortunately, this level of accuracy and attention to detail is not consistent throughout the set, and it has its share of flaws.

For starters, the wheels are very disappointing. A large model like this should have accurate wheels and tires, and here they are anything but. The rear tires should be about 30% wider, but this set uses the same tires front and back, which is just cheap and lazy. These are not cheap sets, and for $200 we really should be getting more accurate tire sizes. Instead, they gave us recycled Batmobile tires, with way too much rubber and the wheels being far too small. They do give us big wheel covers to put over the tires so you can't actually see that the wheels are too small, but this feels like a cheap solution as well. The Mercedes partially fixes this problem by giving us proper low-profile slick tires, but the issue with the rear tires not being wider persists. Do better, Lego! As expected, there are a ton of stickers in this set, but the colors of the stickers don't match the colors of the pieces. The shades of orange and blue are clearly not the same, and up close it's obvious that they don't match. The Mercedes once again does better here, as it's pretty much uniformly black, so there are no mismatched colors.

The playability of this set is obviously low, being a large display model. I gave the Mercedes 2 stars in this department, but this set is even worse, lacking hand-of-God steering, which it badly needs. The steering wheel is functional but not really usable, and it's much easier to turn the tires themselves instead. Design-wise, there is a cut-out in the bodywork so you can see the engine and its moving pistons, but why do we need this on a display piece? It just looks weird and unrealistic. The Mercedes offers a better solution, with an easily removable engine cover that allows you to see the engine only when you want to. Then there's the price. $200 for 1432 pieces on a set with fewer functions than much older Technic F1 cars? Yikes! I guess F1 licensing must be very expensive indeed.

I've spent a lot of time criticizing this set already, so I'll finish by saying that this really isn't a bad set at all, just a flawed one with lots of obvious possible improvements. Lego does this kind of thing a lot, and you can clearly see how their next F1 model fixed many problems this set had. Despite all the issues, it still looks pretty good. These 1:8 cars are really massive, and it's difficult to do them justice with words, or even photos. You really have to see one on a table to appreciate how good they are. If you own this set, remember to put a book under it to stop the bodywork from sagging to the floor. The shocks simply cannot handle the length of this car's wheelbase. It's even a couple studs longer than the Mercedes, which is already huge. So should you buy this set? It depends. Are you a collector? Unquestionably yes, so you can display all the F1 cars together. Are you working with limited funds or shelf space? Get the Mercedes instead. It's $20 more than this set but superior to it in every way.

First LEGO-set after years.... Had to buy this one due to the awesome co-operation with McLaren F1. I wanted a medium-big set for a long time already, and it didn't disappoint. Unfortunately, there are many steps that you have to do twice but mirrored which became a little boring. I've taken my time and build the car in several evenings, so it wasn't a big deal. Really love how the suspension and the driveshaft is designed and have to be put together. This set got me hooked for the next one.

The result, definitely an awesome model car. But it has 2 downsides:

• The car is quite heavy in the suspension and flexing of the parts together with some little force, makes the car drag on the ground.
• There is too much play in the steering rods, which makes the front wheels a bit wobbly and makes it hard to drive in a straight line. This makes it less 'playable', if you would want it...

Definitely would recommend as a fun model car to build.