Review: LEGO 77244 Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team W15 E Performance

February 23, 2025 | 1

LEGO Star Wars & Automotive Correspondent

VaderFan2187

Once a dominant force in the turbo-hybrid era, the Mercedes-AMG F1 team has had some shakier results as of late, including a winless 2023 season (although the team managed to place second overall) and a P4 constructors’ finish in the 2024 season. Plus, they lost Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari.

The 2024 car, the W15 E Performance, combined aspects of both the 2023 and 2024 liveries to create a striking silver and black design. The sweeping lines of the W15’s livery may prove to be a challenge to translate to brick form, but Speed Champions designers have historically been exceptional at replicating challenging designs in LEGO form, so let’s check it out up close!

77244 Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team W15 E Performance will be available from 1 March 2025 onwards, and can be pre-ordered on LEGO.com, Amazon.com, or as part of the massive LEGO Ultimate Formula 1 Collector’s Pack.

This is a guest review by automotive correspondent and F1 superfan Vaderfan, who will be bringing you a whole heap of LEGO and Technic Formula 1 reviews in the next few days!

• Review: 77242 Ferrari SF-24 F1 Race Car
• Review: 77251 McLaren F1 Team MCL38 Race Car
• Review: 77243 Oracle Red Bull Racing RB20 F1 Race Car
• Review: LEGO 77244 Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team W15 E Performance

Special thanks to the LEGO Group for sending this set over for review.

77244 Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team W15 E Performance Set Details

Unboxing

The box has the standard design for the F1 Speed Champions lineup, showcasing the W15 against a motion-blurred background.

The back of the box shows the car in some sort of display room, along with some alternate angles of the model.

Inside the box is the standard inclusion for this lineup – 6 numbered bags, an instruction manual, a sticker sheet, and a loose chassis piece.

The instructions are pretty standard, but they do include this pair of pages that compares the fuel capacity of the real car and the LEGO car – “infinite curiosity” for the LEGO model is a cute touch.

The sticker sheet is quite extensive, as we’ve come to expect from Speed Champions sets based on racing cars.

The lineup of interesting parts in these Speed Champions F1 sets is fairly standard too – new wheels (printed with white hard tyre designs here), new 2×6 curved slope for the rear wing, new 1×6 printed curved slope for the front wing, and new wheel suspension pieces. There’s also the return of the darksaber blade piece from the Star Wars theme, which forms the rear fin on the car here.

Build Process

Bags 1 and 2 are opened simultaneously, having you build the chassis and core bodywork of the model.

Bags 3 and 4 add the front and rear wings; surprisingly it’s a different order of construction from some of the other F1 sets I’ve built so far, that usually finish the center section before adding the front wing.

Finally, bags 5-6 complete the model, adding the necessary central details around the sidepods and cockpit.

Minifigures

The minifigure here is nearly identical to the one in 60444 F1 Garage & Mercedes-AMG & Alpine Cars, the main exception being the flashy new dual-moulded helmet.

While it looks great and the teal colour complements the colours of the car well, I would’ve liked to see a yellow version to represent Lewis Hamilton’s final Mercedes helmet design. Unfortunately, there are no yellow helmets in the entire 2025 F1 lineup so you can’t make that substitution yourself either.

The lack of an opening visor is also a slightly odd choice, although perhaps it would have made the helmet design even bigger. The torso and legs look okay but they are far too underdetailed without any sponsor or textured detail which is disappointing, especially as the 2023 Mercedes F1 minifigure from 76909 had fully accurate printed torso and leg pieces. This new version really feels far too simplistic.

A blonde hairpiece is included, along with a black wrench for the driver.

Reference Image

Completed Model

Here’s the W15 in all its plastic glory. Light grey is used for the tones of the Silver Arrows, which doesn’t quite have the same sheen but looks accurate enough. The colour blocking on the whole is good too, with the underlying black base paired with the teal and light grey striping along the top.

The front view looks good; ideally the light grey section on the nose should be wider towards the top than the bottom, but the specialised 1×6 curved slope for the nose is limited in its design. The row of sponsors looks good too, plus a nice printed Mercedes logo on a 1×1 cheese slope at the tip.

From this angle, the light grey and teal striping along the sidepods looks best, and you can see how a combination of sticker and brick-built work have created a cohesive swooping design.

The model looks pretty good around the sides too, with generally accurate shaping. The gaps between some of the stickers with the Petronas green striping is a little unfortunate but that is due to the shaping of the pieces used.

The rear 3/4 view is also fairly accurate. I like how you can see the silver/teal striping that connects to the front nose, and the mini Petronas logos stickered on the insides of the rear wing is a nice touch.

A look at the underside reveals some brighter colours and intricate shaping, although the red, teal, and green are all highlights of the real livery so their presence is not obtrusive. The differently sized front and rear wheels are also a treat from this angle, and you can see some 1×4 curved slopes next to the rear wheels that hide an ingenious build quirk.

I rave about this technique in almost every review of these F1 cars, but it is pretty unique as far as builds go – a clear minifigure neck bracket is slotted into an axle piece which connects the aforementioned curved slope facing upside-down, and the wheel then goes over it which makes for a seamless design.

Revisiting the front wing, the new curved slope looks really good with prints on the top and sides. Additional stickers are used for more sponsor detail, along with a bit of red highlights on the insides of the front wing. The front tyres look good too, supported by the new wheel cover pieces that have Snapdragon logos stickered onto them.

Let’s take a look at the sidepods. This design was actually quite well done, using some corner slopes to curve the shaping back towards the main body.

A signboard piece with a sticker on top is used for the front of the sidepod, which I am not entirely convinced by. The 2×2 sticker does help to make the striping more seamless, transitioning from the brick-built detail behind into the narrower section at the front, but the shape of the signboard piece does stand out a bit too much, and feels clunky in an otherwise very sleek design.

The cockpit itself looks good too, with some red stickers and a printed 1×1 red tile representing the INEOS red on the airbox.

However, the choice to repeat the same printed tile behind the T-cam was a slightly odd choice, somewhat breaking up the flow of the colours here. I think the 1×1 bracket holding the airbox tile should have been red too – it would make the design a bit more cohesive.

Just like on the other cars, the halo is formed by a bent rubbery hose piece, and can lift up for cockpit access. The driver has a nice printed steering wheel and two mirrors represented by spoon pieces.

The rear bodywork is good-looking too, with a couple of nice printed pieces that have the Mercedes three-pointed stars in a shiny silver. The darksaber blade piece also fits nicely here as the rear fin, complementing the shape of the surrounding slopes.

The rear wing is good too – the exhaust and rear lights are done nicely with some simple pieces, and the new 2×6 slope looks fabulous for the wing itself. A mech finger piece forms the DRS activator.

Comparisons

Here’s how the Speed Champions W15 stacks up against its City counterpart; it’s a whole world of difference in terms of shaping and the level of detail.

Although they don’t represent the exact same car, it’s also nice to see how the Speed Champions W15 stacks up against its larger Technic cousin, 42171, and you might be able to spot some shared details.

Of course, the model looks best when paired with other F1 cars from this Speed Champions lineup – who can forget the climactic clash between Verstappen’s RB20 and Hamilton’s W15 at the Hungarian Grand Prix! I just wish we had a yellow helmet for Hamilton…

It also looks great as part of the “big four” teams that have led the front of the F1 field over the past few years.

Final Thoughts

On the whole, I think the Mercedes W15 in LEGO is a successful rendition, although the sweeping lines of the real car’s livery make it slightly harder to translate to brick form than some of the other F1 cars.

Nevertheless, the designers have done a valiant effort here, creating a beautiful model that is packed full of ingenious, out-of-the-box build techniques. Definitely worth picking up for that loyal Mercedes-AMG fan in your life, who’s still hoping that the team can find their old form once again…

Final Score

4

Build

Certain parts of the sidepod are a little clunkier than what we’re used to from the Speed Champions line, but it’s still an objectively well-done model of a tricky car.

2

Minifigures

The new helmets are great, but the minifigure design is disappointingly plain.

3

Real Value

It’s a fair price for what you get, although faces tough competition from… the other sets in the F1 lineup.

5

Innovation

Tricky liveries demand creative builds, and that is exactly what has been delivered here.

5

Keepability

While the W15 may not have reached the same highs as the championship-winning RB20 or MCL38, it’s still an iconic car that had some fantastic moments in the season (like Lewis Hamilton’s long-awaited comeback win). The livery also looks great, and Mercedes is an iconic F1 team in general, so this should be a desirable set for a long time.

Audience rating

How would you rate this set?

1 2 3 4 5

Thanks for reading! 77244 Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team W15 E Performance will be available from 1 March 2025 onwards, and can be pre-ordered on LEGO.com, Amazon.com, or as part of the massive LEGO Ultimate Formula 1 Collector’s Pack.

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