Topps releases 2024 Paddock Pass trading cards
Hot on the heels of the release of the 2024 Chrome F1 set, Topps’ website has just dropped their new 2024 Paddock Pass Formula 1 card set. This new set has 100 base cards and plenty of new insert themes.
There are driver cards for teams’ official reserve drivers like Felipe Drugovich, Robert Schwartzman, Jack Doohan and Mick Schumacher. US fans might like that a Pato O’Ward card is included as McLaren’s reserve. Franco Colapinto and Oliver Bearman do have insert cards as F2 drivers even though they raced this year in F1. Similar to 2024 Attax and Chrome sets, Paddock Pass also includes cards of Senna, Prost, Mansell, Michael Schumacher and David Coulthard.
Yet to see what the physical cards look like but from the checklist, it looks this set is a hybrid of the old flagship cards and Chrome. There are chrome base cards, autograph cards and a welcome return of relic cards with cutout patches from race worn overalls.
Topps offers both retail hobby boxes and value boxes. Hobby boxes contain 16 packs with 8 cards per pack and are retailing for $US119.99. 7 Chrome refractors are guaranteed in each hobby box. Value boxes are a cheaper option at $US24.99 and contain 6 packs with 5 cards per pack. This is a cheaper unit cost per card however value boxes only include 3 chrome base cards (no chrome parallels). Buyers of value boxes though will be encouraged that signature and relic cards are not exclusive to hobby boxes only and they still have a (rare) chance to pull a relic patch card.
Relic cards are on offer in the new Paddock Pass collection
The parallel cards in the Paddock Pass include:
- foil cards (red, black, black & white, sepia, purple, blue, rainbow, gold rainbow)
- First Day Issue
- Members First
- Photographers proof
- chrome refractors (green, orange, purple, blue, pearl white, gold mint, x-fractor and superfractor)
There are lots of insert card themes in the Paddock Pass set which includes Angle of Attack, Power Packed, In a Blur, Aerodynamic, Nightscapes, Beam Team, Trophy Hunters, Sparks Fly, Prolific, Triumvirates, World Stage, Circuit Breakers, Warp Speed, Signature insert cards (Lone Star, Apex, Paddock Pass, Racing Line) and relic inserts (Smokeshow, Paddock Pass, Top Crop and Terminal Velocity).
More autograph cards
The lower card cost and inclusion of both autograph and relic cards might make Paddock Pass cards a little more appealing than 2024 Chrome cards. The lower count of base cards though will likely mean a higher chance of pulling repeat cards though.
Keep in mind, the pull odds of Paddock Pass autographs are lower (ie. harder) than for 2024 Chrome and the pull odds of Paddock Pass relic cards are also harder than in the 2022 Topps F1 flagship collection.
With the 2024 season finished, Topps may be banking on collectors having more spare time to satisfy their F1 hunger but it also may be risking a bit of over saturation with 2024 Turbo Attax, Chrome and now Paddock Pass sets being released.
Once I get my hands on a few of these new Paddock Pass cards, I’ll do a compare review.
