It has been a week since the teaser trailer of the creatively dubbed F1 movie launched, but what do you need to know about the Brad Pitt starring extravaganza?
Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, a retired Formula 1 race plucked out of the IMSA racing scene (Pitt and the film production shot scenes with a Porsche 911 at the Daytona 24 Hours earlier this year), by Oscar-winning Javier Bardem’s character, owner of the fictitious APXGP, the 11th team on the Formula 1 grid.
Hayes is paired with a young hotshot Joshua Pearce, portrayed by Damson Idris.
Together Hayes and Pearce fight to elevate APXGP up the F1 pecking order, with production involving real Formula 1 teams and drivers in the film itself.
“I would be a guy who raced in the ’90s,” Pitt told Sky Sports F1’s Martin Brundle last year. “He has a horrible crash and kind of craps out and disappears and then is racing in other disciplines.”
Pitt also went on to state that his character is brought back into Formula 1 “as kind of a Hail Mary and hijinks ensue.”
The film is directed by Joseph Kosinski, responsible for helming Top Gun: Maverick, with Hollywood legend Jerry Bruckheimer attached as a producer.
Seven-time Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton is also attached to the project, an Apple original film that will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros.
F1 is slated to open in North American movie theatres on June 27, 2025 and worldwide on June 25, 2025.
The most striking part of the F1 production is its immersive nature within the actual Formula 1 paddock.
Pitt and Idris have both filmed on track in modified Formula 2 cars and the fictitious APXGP team has embedded itself in the paddock, pits, media pen and on the Formula 1 grid at multiple Grand Prix events.
The film production has shot scenes at Silverstone, Hungary, Spa, Monza, Zandvoort, Japan, Las Vegas, Abu Dhabi and Mexico City.
“We’ve got Brad and Damson actually driving the cars, which is pretty spectacular in itself, but to do that in front of a live audience and at the speeds they’re doing it and figuring out a way to capture it,” Kosinski told Deadline.
“The logistics of it are unlike anything I’ve done before.
“We’re shooting at the actual Grands Prix, there are certain aspects of this film where we’re working in very, very tight windows, shooting on the track, between practice and qualifying sessions, in front of hundreds of thousands of people.”
Kosinski has also revealed state of the art technology is being used to capture the Formula 1 experience, with F1 created for big screens, including IMAX.
“We have bespoke cameras for this that are very small and light so that they don’t impede the performance of the car too much and that’s key because you don’t want to have a race car and then put 200 pounds of gear on it,” he said.
“Our camera mounts were designed with Mercedes as well. The cameras are specially designed by Sony.
“It’s the next generation from what we did on Top Gun. Everything is much smaller and the big innovation that is that we’re now able to control the movement of the cameras on the cars.
“We’re not locked into these kinds of fixed positions we had on Top Gun. Now we have real-time control of panning and focusing them while shooting through a very extensive RF network that we’ve built around the tracks.”
F1, starring Pitt, Idris and Bardem also stars Simone Ashley, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, Sarah Niles and Samson Kayo.
