From Apple Original Films and the filmmakers from Top Gun: Maverick comes the high-octane, action-packed feature film F1, starring Brad Pitt and directed by Joseph Kosinski, and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Kosinski, seven-time FORMULA 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton, Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Chad Oman.
Dubbed “the greatest that never was,” Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) was FORMULA 1’s most promising phenom of the 1990s until an accident on the track nearly ended his career. Thirty years later, he’s a nomadic racer-for-hire when he’s approached by his former teammate Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), owner of a struggling FORMULA 1 team that is on the verge of collapse. Ruben convinces Sonny to come back to FORMULA 1 for one last shot at saving the team and being the best in the world. He’ll drive alongside Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), the team’s hotshot rookie intent on setting his own pace. But as the engines roar, Sonny’s past catches up with him and he finds that in FORMULA 1, your teammate is your fiercest competition—and the road to redemption is not something you can travel alone.
As the trailer for F1 releases across the globe, our Peter Gray was invited to attend an exclusive event with director Kosinski, where he divulged behind the scenes tidbits and spoke of the filmmaking process, the technology utilised, and uncovering Pitt’s own natural ability as a driver.
Lewis Hamilton helped start the film
Kosinski wanted to ensure the sport’s intense speed felt as real as possible, so he went straight to someone who lives and breathes F1; one of the greatest of all time, Lewis Hamilton.
Hamilton introduced Kosinski to Toto Wolf (Torger Christian Wolff), the CEO of Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team, and it was he came up with the idea of rather than building a car for the film that could achieve the right speed, why not start with a real race car and work the cameras into that.
“We bought six F2 cars, real F2 race cars, and worked with Mercedes AMG, the Formula One team and their engineers to build real race cars that could carry our camera equipment recorders for making this film. So every time you see Brad driving this in movie, (he’s) driving on his own in one of these real race cars on a real F1 track.”
Kosinski furthered as to how instrumental Hamilton was in both the technical aspects of the film, as well as formulating the narrative, with Brad Pitt encapsulating the veteran racer and Damson Idris, the rookie, both positions Hamilton has been in his career.
“His perspective on shaping the narrative of these two characters and giving real insight into what it is that drives him – what makes these guys want to do this day in day out – it was really, really helpful. We couldn’t have made this film without (Lewis).”
Brad Pitt is a natural
Hamilton served as a driving instructor to both Kosinski and Pitt, and he was very happy to discover that the Oscar-winning actor possessed a natural ability from the start when it came to driving.
“If Brad can’t drive, this whole film wasn’t going to work. After that first meeting, it gave Lewis a lot of confidence that we had a shot at pulling this off.”
You don’t have to be a fan of motorsport to enjoy the film
Kosinski stressed that the film is universal. It’s about friendship, teamwork, sacrifice, and redemption. It just happens to be set in the world of Formula One.
“If you are a Formula One fan, I think you’re going to like this movie. If you don’t know anything about Formula One, I think you’re going to like this movie and you might come out wanting to watch some races or maybe even go to a race. We’ll teach you everything you need to enjoy this story.”
Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem’s 30-year friendship helped ground the film
When asked about the important of character authenticity in a film that will have a lot of attention drawn towards its visuals, Kosinski noted how important casting is, beyond a great script. Working again with writer Ehren Kruger, who he worked with on Top Gun: Maverick, the director commented how none of the racing really matters if there’s not a great story being told. Pitt and Bardem’s characters’ relationship is at the core of the film, and the healthy tension between their characters helps build on its emotionality.
A brand new camera system was developed to capture the action
F1 is set to immerse its audience in the racing scenes, similar to how they felt so close to the action in the sky for Top Gun: Maverick. Kosinski explained how he took the cameras he worked with on Maverick and then sized them down to a quarter of their size, allowing him to operate the motorized mounts on the vehicles to truly capture the action.
“We have transmitters that are transmitting the picture back. We’ve got transmitters controlling the movement of the camera. I’m sitting at the base with our cinematographer looking at 16 screens. So much research and technology and development went into just being able to roll a frame of footage, in addition to the training for the actors and the logistics of shooting at a real race. It was a lot of prep to be able to pull this off.”
Hans Zimmer is composing the music
Kosinski admitted just how much work the legendary composer had cut out for him, having to contend with so much sound in the film. The track recordings are all the sounds of real cars, so that sound design was important, which made the musical score all the more important.
“The score for this film is something I’m really excited for people to hear. It’s Hans. He does what few composers can do, (which) is he can write a real theme, a real melody, that you just can’t get out of your head. And he’s written another one here that I can’t wait for people to hear.”
No, he didn’t get to drive an F1 car around the track
After joking as to how handsome and charming F1 racers are in general, Kosinski was asked if he was able to join in the fun of driving alongside his leading men. With that insurance company, the director wasn’t going anywhere near a car.
“The closest I got was that first day with Lewis and some, not Formula One, but some pretty fast sports cars. But after the movie was going, they kept me as far away from those cars as possible.”
F1 is scheduled to release in Australian theatres on June 26th, 2025.
