Lego goes all in on Components 1, including F1 Academy workforce sponsorship

Lego is rebuilding how shoppers interact with motorsport brick by brick.

In 2025, Lego kicked off a partnership with Components 1 that introduced formally licensed units to world retail cabinets and immersive experiences to races world wide. Within the almost 12 months since launch, the collaboration has bolstered fan engagement for each manufacturers, result in promotional gross sales of Lego merchandise and expanded the demographic attain for the toy firm and the racing group.

In August, Lego CEO Niels Christiansen touted the corporate’s Components 1 units as one of many improvements that fueled document first-half income and working revenue. The corporate, which is privately held, reported a 12% year-over-year income bump to 34.6 billion Danish kroner, or $5.4 billion, for the primary six months of 2025.

“It’s a massively rising fan base,” Julia Goldin, chief product and advertising and marketing officer at Lego, advised CNBC. “It’s the greatest motorsport now by way of its fandom. … We felt that we might actually faucet into that and ship one thing very distinctive.”

With Components 1, Lego is not simply leveraging an current fandom, it is increasing it, bringing underserved demographics into the world of racing and fascinating new prospects.

“Lego has a fantastic repute for selecting out the best traits to change into part of, and motorsports in recent times has been on an actual upswing,” stated James Zahn, editor in chief of The Toy Ebook.

“F1, as we have seen, has simply change into a cultural juggernaut the place it’s attracting an viewers that is not your typical motorsports fan,” he stated. “It appears to transcend ages and pursuits.”

ESPN, which broadcast the 2025 F1 season within the U.S., reported document viewership numbers for the races. The Disney-owned sports activities community noticed a mean of 1.3 million viewers throughout its stations and platforms via the vast majority of the racing calendar. That was up from a earlier document of 1.21 million viewers set in 2022 and up from simply 554,000 in 2018, the primary 12 months of ESPN’s broadcasting take care of F1.

Subsequent 12 months, U.S. broadcasting rights transfer to Apple TV following the success of the Apple-distributed “F1: The Film,” which hit cinemas in June.

In increasing its catalog of merchandise — introducing meticulously designed F1 automobile brick units, full with team-accurate liveries — Lego has constructed gateways into the model for newcomers.

“On the coronary heart of it was understanding our viewers’s ardour factors,” Goldin stated. “After we select to enter a partnership, might we see ourselves doing one thing distinctive that will supply actual worth … we felt like we had an actual alternative to ship experiences that they might actually love.”

The F1 portfolio included merchandise for Lego’s Duplo line for preschool kids, conventional units for informal builders and Lego Technic units for extra superior builders.

Lego was additionally current at F1 races in the course of the season, internet hosting in-person activations that included useful, life-size Components 1 vehicles and even crafting trophies out of bricks for podium finishers of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

On the Las Vegas Grand Prix in November, the highest three drivers have been chauffeured to a media availability space following the race in a life-size pink Lego Cadillac, a nod to the Cadillac F1 workforce that is becoming a member of the grid in 2026.

With the 2025 season wrapped, Lego is already constructing into subsequent 12 months.

“Lego is considered one of our dream companions,” stated Susie Wolff, managing director of F1 Academy, an all-female racing league beneath the broader F1 umbrella.

“Once they joined Components 1, I instantly reached out to Julia [Goldin], the [chief product and marketing officer], and stated, ‘Hear, might we discover doing one thing along with F1 Academy?'” Wolff advised CNBC. “There’s simply so many synergies between what they’re attempting to do and what our essential mission is.”

F1 Academy held its inaugural season in 2023. The division was established to deal with the dearth of feminine drives within the F1 collection and goals to develop younger feminine drivers and put together them for larger ranges of competitors.

“We’re attempting to interrupt down the preconceptions of motorsport being a male-dominated setting,” Wolff stated, noting Lego has equally made strides to advertise inclusivity with its brick units.

As a part of the continuing relationship between the 2 manufacturers, Lego has signed on as a workforce sponsor for an F1 Academy automobile beginning in 2026. Behind the wheel is Esmee Kosterman, a 20-year-old Dutch driver.

Lego’s Goldin stated whereas the F1 Academy partnership is an extension of the prevailing racing partnership, “they’re doing it in a singular manner, as a result of they’re really partnering as much as help a life-size automobile and the driving force.”

“That is a vital ingredient of bringing extra consideration and form of underscoring the credibility and authenticity of girls collaborating in motorsports and, importantly, for his or her dad and mom to see the chance [and] potential for them to be engaged within the sport,” Goldin stated.

Zahn of The Toy Ebook described the collaboration between Lego and Components 1, notably the F1 Academy, as a “good partnership.”

“[The] Feminine motorsports fan has all the time been there, however they have not essentially been embraced on the buyer product facet of issues,” he stated.

Wolff and Goldin each famous that one of many fastest-growing segments of the Components 1 fan base is girls.

“We’re tapping precisely into the the pattern of this fandom and we’re including worth to the companion, as nicely,” Goldin stated. “We see from our knowledge that not solely are we participating extra F1 followers with the Lego model, however vice versa. There are extra Lego model followers that are actually turning into followers of Components 1.”