Remember where you were on December 12, 2021? If you’re an F1 fan, chances are you do, because that was the day Max Verstappen snatched his first world title away from Lewis Hamilton on the literal final lap, in the literal final corner, off the back of a safety car restart that stewards are probably still debating in group chats somewhere. I was rooting for Hamilton that day, and honestly, watching it unfold live still ranks as one of the most gutting sports moments I’ve sat through. Verstappen fans got a legend born in real time. The rest of us got years of “what if” conversations that still spark up whenever Abu Dhabi comes up.
F1 Authentics just gave fans a way to own a literal piece of that chaos. The official F1 memorabilia arm, run by Memento Exclusives, has dropped a new Mystery Box collection where every single box guarantees a genuine piece of bodywork from the RB16B, the Honda powered Red Bull that carried Verstappen to that maiden championship. Only 1,000 boxes exist worldwide, with 500 going up for grabs online, priced around £1,000 GBP ($1,348 USD) a pop, which also happens to be the minimum guaranteed value of everything packed inside.
Designer: F1 Authentics (Memento Exclusives)
That RB16B earned every bit of the spotlight it’s getting now. It was an evolution of the 2020 car, finally sharp enough to go toe to toe with a dominant Mercedes squad, and it carried Verstappen through nine wins across one of the most contentious title fights modern F1 has produced. Hamilton led early, Verstappen clawed the lead back mid-season, and the two arrived at Abu Dhabi dead level on points. We all know how that ended. Owning a fragment of that car means owning a piece of the exact machine that decided, for better or worse depending who you asked, one of the sport’s most argued about championships.
Photo by Batchelor/XPB Images
Somewhere in that run of a thousand boxes sits the real chaos generator, a redeemable ticket for an official F1 replica front wing and nose, pulled from cars across Aston Martin, Cadillac, Racing Bulls, Red Bull, Williams, or Alpine, and valued north of twenty grand. It’s a genuinely wild pull rate, turning what could have been a straightforward memorabilia drop into something closer to a scratch card for grown adults with disposable income and a soft spot for motorsport history.
Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images
F1 Authentics has been building toward drops like this all year, following an earlier sold out box tied to Lando Norris’s championship car and a March release that hid an £89,000 racing simulator inside one of just 150 units. F1 memorabilia is getting gamified, and this RB16B drop might be the most emotionally loaded chapter yet, especially if you were the one yelling at your TV that night in Abu Dhabi.
