[MOC] Ferrari SF70H vs. Mercedes W08 (2017 F1 cars)

[MR Swordfish]

2017 ranks as one of my favorite years for F1 in the last decade. I love the improvements to the cars’ aesthetics, and the racing got back to record-setting speeds. Beyond that, Ferrari made a strong return to form that really took the fight to Mercedes, and I could not be happier with that development. 2018’s cars are set to debut later this month (and introduce cockpit protection to the sport), but I wanted to take one last look at the 2017 season by capturing some of it in LEGO. I present to you the Ferrari SF70H vs. the Mercedes W08.

^ Here they are! I really tried to capture the proportions of the cars as well as I could in this scale while keeping the designs fairly detailed.

 

^ I originally built the W08 with actual green pieces, but eventually opted to just give the car it's correct colors using custom made stickers on gray parts. It just looked so much better this way.

 

^ The #5 driver numbers on the SF70H are the only custom stickers I had to make for it. The rest are from Speed Champions sets (I almost always save the stickers).

 

 

 

^ The Mercedes has a slightly longer wheelbase than the Ferrari, as seen on the real cars (example).

 

 

^ The Mercedes also has a slimmer nose than the Ferrari, again to mimic the real cars. The front wing "aero" varies between the two models as well.

 

 

^ The last major difference between the two models are the engine covers; The Ferrari has it's T-wing mounted directly to the shark fin, whereas the Mercedes has it mounted on it's own little support arm.

 

^ The drivers are made with the "driver body" pieces that were included in a ton of the 2002 Racers sets. These two are from "4593 Zero Hurricane & Red Blizzard", with helmets and customized minfig heads. While it would be possible to make full minfigs fit in these cars, I don't think it's possible to do so without making the cockpit area look considerably less accurate.

 

 

 

In the last four years I've only built one other model, but alongside these two I'll be putting up a few more replica F1 cars in 2018 for sure. This is my first time posting a creation on Eurobricks, so thanks so much for taking the time to look at my MOCs! I've also posted this to MOCpages (link), and larger images can be found on my new Flickr page (link).

 

EDIT: Bonus photo comparison of the real SF70H vs the MOC version;

 

Edited February 11, 2018 by MR Swordfish

[Zetroc]

*throws away his own sorry excuse for a Ferarri F1 model*

[paupadros]

Beautiful! I'm a big F1 fan myself, so this is something I enjoy very much. Must agree (though rooting for Seb since 2011) that this season was amazing. The cars were awesome, the racing was fiercer, the overtakes were incredible. At my home you could even hear a really long "megabluck you Max" in a race you might remember. Perspective has told me that though Seb was great all season long, Baku and Singapore were two moumental mistakes (looking at you Malaysia 2013 ).

Your models... Just awesome. Have a 2006 (I believe) Racers set myself that I modify yearly to add the new regulations, but this just laps mine. Particularly like the sloped back spoilers (though DRS is an easy addition using the rocking pieces!).

[austindave]

Cool F1 cars looking good. I have yet to figure out how to get a halo type thing in lego.  I was thinking of using Handlebars with Angular Handles 98397 and something stuck on the ends. Maybe if Lego make some 2018 F1 car they make something.

Dave
 

Edited February 3, 2018 by austindave

[LM71Blackbird]

I'm more of a NASCAR fan, but those cars look fantastic! Great job on all the detail and styling!

[MR Swordfish]

15 hours ago, Zetroc said:

*throws away his own sorry excuse for a Ferarri F1 model*

Hey come on, it's all about the fun of the build

14 hours ago, paupadros said:

Beautiful! I'm a big F1 fan myself, so this is something I enjoy very much. Must agree (though rooting for Seb since 2011) that this season was amazing. The cars were awesome, the racing was fiercer, the overtakes were incredible. At my home you could even hear a really long "megabluck you Max" in a race you might remember. Perspective has told me that though Seb was great all season long, Baku and Singapore were two moumental mistakes (looking at you Malaysia 2013 ).

Your models... Just awesome. Have a 2006 (I believe) Racers set myself that I modify yearly to add the new regulations, but this just laps mine. Particularly like the sloped back spoilers (though DRS is an easy addition using the rocking pieces!).

Thanks so much! Glad I'm not the only one who enjoyed the season. Always nice to see Seb competing for a win! And those 2006 Ferrari Racers sets are what got me into really following the sport as a kid after years of just liking and building anything that looked vaguely F1/Indycar. The car in "8673 Ferrari F1 Fuel Stop" blew my kid mind and really inspired me to try to build genuine F1 cars.

14 hours ago, austindave said:

Cool F1 cars looking good. I have yet to figure out how to get a halo type thing in lego.  I was thinking of using Handlebars with Angular Handles 98397 and something stuck on the ends. Maybe if Lego make some 2018 F1 car they make something.

Dave
 

Thanks. The solid black Halo prototype wouldn't be difficult to do, but who knows what the final versions will look like later this month. It might end up being something very tricky to imitate... but I guess we'll see.

6 hours ago, LM71Blackbird said:

I'm more of a NASCAR fan, but those cars look fantastic! Great job on all the detail and styling!

Ha, thank you! Nice to hear you liked these despite your preference for NASCAR

[peedeejay]

These are amazing. Fantastic details!

[paupadros]

1 hour ago, MR Swordfish said:

Thanks so much! Glad I'm not the only one who enjoyed the season. Always nice to see Seb competing for a win! And those 2006 Ferrari Racers sets are what got me into really following the sport as a kid after years of just liking and building anything that looked vaguely F1/Indycar. The car in "8673 Ferrari F1 Fuel Stop" blew my kid mind and really inspired me to try to build genuine F1 cars.

Cool! My parents bought me 8673 one Christmas and "8672 Ferrari Finish Line" the next. I remember flipping the rubber tyres around so I had soft tyres for my races! There was more than one intentional crash onto my house's walls... Just for the crash tests, of course  ! In fact, I learned about stacking plates in alternate patterns thanks to that!

[prototyp]

Yea these are fun, nicely done.

[BrickMonkeyMOCs]

Exceptional work. The final SF70H comparison shot is particularly impressive. You've motivated me to upgrade my city-scale Ferrari F1 to 2017 specs. Mine isn't quite as accurate, but that's mainly the result of fitting in both a minifigure and an engine while making sure that the cars will also still fit in their transporter trucks. Nice work with the stickers here too. With the re-release of teal parts in recent sets it might soon be possible to brick-build some of the Mercedes coloring.

[MR Swordfish]

On 2/4/2018 at 1:28 AM, peedeejay said:

These are amazing. Fantastic details!

Thank you!

22 hours ago, paupadros said:

Cool! My parents bought me 8673 one Christmas and "8672 Ferrari Finish Line" the next. I remember flipping the rubber tyres around so I had soft tyres for my races! There was more than one intentional crash onto my house's walls... Just for the crash tests, of course  ! In fact, I learned about stacking plates in alternate patterns thanks to that!

Ha, very nice. I really wanted Ferrari Finish Line back then, so consider me jealous

15 hours ago, prototyp said:

Yea these are fun, nicely done.

I appreciate that, thanks!

5 hours ago, BrickMonkeyMOCs said:

Exceptional work. The final SF70H comparison shot is particularly impressive. You've motivated me to upgrade my city-scale Ferrari F1 to 2017 specs. Mine isn't quite as accurate, but that's mainly the result of fitting in both a minifigure and an engine while making sure that the cars will also still fit in their transporter trucks. Nice work with the stickers here too. With the re-release of teal parts in recent sets it might soon be possible to brick-build some of the Mercedes coloring.

Oh yeah, making the minifigures fit is a real setback for the cockpit area.. and an engine adds even more problems! And yes, it's definitely trickier to make F1 cars look extremely accurate in city scale. I have nothing against doing it that way in general though, I love to see different approaches to capturing F1 in LEGO. Thankfully, these 9-wide MOCs look perfect next to my 8-wide cars, since the real 2017 spec F1 cars are legitimately wider than 1998-2016 era F1 cars... and most cars in general!

And thank you about your compliments towards the cars and the stickers. I do wish the Mercedes' stickers had photographed a little less bluish, but ah well. In person they look spot-on. I didn't know teal parts were making a comeback, but I would love to have brick-built coloring on that car instead if it becomes possible. As I said in the OP, I tried doing it with green parts (like the way LEGO handled it in the Speed Champions sets), but it just... didn't look good enough to me in those colors. And according to Bricklink, it would have been impossible to acquire all the necessary parts in sand green, which might have looked okay. I kept the green pieces with stickers though, just in case I change my mind about them. Here's a bad photo from before I made the car all gray with teal stickers;

Edited February 5, 2018 by MR Swordfish