Aston Martin Vantage Safety Car & AMR23

The Aston Martin Vantage F1 Safety Car shown on the LEGO® 76925 box is the first-generation model — the AMG-engined 2018 Vantage chassis, lightly modified by Aston Martin's M Division, that took up FIA Safety Car duties at the 2021 Bahrain Grand Prix. Aston Martin shares the contract with Mercedes-AMG; the Vantage runs roughly half the calendar (in 2023, that meant Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Australia, and ten other rounds). It is driven by Bernd Mayländer, who has been the FIA Safety Car driver since 2000.

Power comes from a hand-built 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 sourced from Mercedes-AMG (the M177) — the same architecture that sits in the road-going Vantage and in the DBX and DB12. In Safety Car spec the engine produces 503 hp (375 kW) and 685 Nm. The Mayländer-driven car has been further modified for F1 duty: an FIA-spec roll cage, fire suppression, an additional alternator to power the roof lightbar continuously, an extra cockpit display showing live timing, an exterior mirror cluster on the passenger side, and Recaro racing seats with full harnesses.

The Safety Car's role is real and load-bearing for an F1 race — when Mayländer is deployed, every car on the grid runs at the speed of the Vantage. That demands a car that is both quick (top speed ~314 km/h, 0–100 km/h in 3.6 seconds in road spec) and stable enough to lead a 20-car train through wet or chaotic conditions without losing time to running tyre temperature. Aston Martin's prep brief was to make a road car capable of doing exactly that. The 2023 specification on the 76925 box is the original-generation Vantage; in March 2024 a more aggressive Vantage S F1 Safety Car (656 hp) replaced it, but the LEGO® 76925 set models the earlier and more familiar version.

It is the first LEGO® Speed Champions set to depict an active Formula 1 Safety Car — and it includes the roof-mounted lightbar, cockpit lights-control sticker, and side-rear taillight printing that distinguish the FIA build from a road-going Vantage.

The AMR23 was Aston Martin Aramco's 2023 Formula 1 challenger — the car that broke the Aston Martin F1 team out of midfield obscurity and into the front-row conversation for the first time since the 2020 Racing Point rebrand. It was launched on 13 February 2023 at Silverstone, with a launch livery developed in partnership with title partner Aramco. The car was driven by Fernando Alonso (newly signed from Alpine) and Lance Stroll. The LEGO® 76925 rendition shows it in the Aramco green and lime-yellow scheme used through most of the season.

Technically the AMR23 was a clear evolution of the 2022 AMR22 (the team's first ground-effect car under the 2022 regulations) — but with a heavily revised front wing, new sidepods (combining a scalloped upper surface with a deep-angled undercut), a new engine cover with a larger inlet on the roll hoop, and significantly more sophisticated underfloor aero. The chief designer was Dan Fallows, who had joined Aston Martin in April 2022 from Red Bull Racing. Power came from the customer Mercedes-AMG F1 M14 E Performance V6 hybrid power unit shared with Mercedes, McLaren, and Williams.

The 2023 season opened with Alonso scoring six podiums in the first eight races (Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Miami, Monaco, Canada — all P3 except Monaco P3 and Canada P2), the kind of run the team had not produced in any era. Aston Martin was briefly second in the constructors' championship in the early Spring of 2023. By the end of the season the development gap to Red Bull (who took 21 of 22 races with Verstappen and Pérez) had widened, and Aston Martin finished fifth in the constructors' standings with 280 points. Alonso was fourth in the drivers' standings with eight podiums.

Bernd Mayländer's Safety Car was deployed multiple times during AMR23 races (notably Saudi Arabia, where Alonso took his first podium for the team). The 76925 set captures the rare situation where the same Aston Martin badge was on both ends of a Safety Car restart.