After several drivers threatened to boycott the newest iteration of the F1 LEGO race, all 22 drivers took part in the Silverstone parade lap event, but did not have an easy go of it.
Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton were among the loudest protesters of the LEGO race, with both former champions upset with the distracting event ahead of a monumental grand prix.
“I’ll just get over it as quickly as possible, wave to the fans because they deserve that,” Verstappen said on Thursday. “But, of course, if it was up to me I would just like a normal drivers’ parade. What is wrong with it? Just an electric truck or whatever driving us around. I think that’s fine but it is what it is, but it is not like a draw.”
This is the second time that LEGO has sponsored the drivers’ parade; last year, ahead of the Miami Grand Prix, each team was issued a true-to-scale LEGO two-seater F1 car to race around. Since there were inner team battles for who got to drive, this year the field was neutralized with 22 individual cars.
The drivers were joined by FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem and F1 president Stefano Domenicali in their own karts.
Track limits were ignored as the drivers went skidding across the track surface and grass, waving to fans.
The parade lap descended into chaos with half the drivers skidding off into the gravel, bumping bricks, and Carlos Sainz somehow found a way to DNF.
Lando Norris and Sainz pulled off a reverse of the 1991 British Grand Prix, where the Williams driver, Nigel Mansell, gave the McLaren driver, Ayrton Senna, a ride on his side pod after the latter ran out of gas on the final lap. After Sainz crashed his Williams-branded LEGO car, his former McLaren teammate Norris gave him a ride back on the side of his papaya colored LEGO car.
In the end, Fernando Alonso won the ‘race’ ahead of Esteban Ocon and Valtteri Bottas.
Victoria Beaver is a nomadic sports writer who spends her time hopping between race tracks and hippie farms. She’s covered every corner of motorsports that will let her in from 410 Sprints to NASCAR to Supercross. Her daily driver is a 2010 Subaru that she refused to do the smallest amount of preventative maintenance on. Instead, she spends her free time and money building a 42-foot Skoolie to one day travel the country full time.