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.
Dubbed the “greatest that never was”, Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) was Formula 1’s most promising phenom of the 1990s until he spectacularly crashed and burned. 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 F1® 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 accelerated pace. But as the engines roar, Sonny’s past catches up with him and he finds that in F1®, your teammate is your fiercest competition—and the road to redemption is not something you can travel alone.
The newest, high-octane trailer for F1 has been released, and if you thought the immersive intensity from Kosinski’s last film, Top Gun: Maverick couldn’t be topped, then I think you’re in for a treat! The incredible cinematography of these racing sequences looks phenomenal, capturing exactly what it must feel like to be hurtling at 180 mph in these racing cars! And with F1 superstar Lewis Hamilton on board as a producer, audiences should expect to experience the real deal when it comes to how Formula 1 is portrayed in this film.
But it’s not just speedy thrills in this new trailer. We get even more of a look into the story of Sonny Hayes (Pitt), and his troubled past colliding with his present, and even more so, the future – which comes in the form of Joshua Pearce, played by Damson Idris. Similar to Top Gun: Maverick, there definitely feels like themes of the old way versus the new way are going to play out on screen, but in a very entertaining and cinematic way. Plus, when you have the star power and acting skills of people like Pitt, Javier Bardem, Kerry Condon and Idris, then you know you’re in for a good time!
Check out the new trailer here!
In celebration of the trailer launch, Nick L’Barrow was lucky enough to attend the global press conference for the launch, which featured director Joseph Kosinski discussing the making of this film, working with his stars, and why Formula 1 as a sport interested him in making this movie. Check out some of his thoughts below!
On why he wanted to make a movie about F1…
Well, I think like a lot of people during COVID, I found myself starting to watch the races and found this great television show called Drive to Survive, and I found that it’s an incredibly unique sport in that your teammate is also your, in many ways, your greatest competition. And for me, that makes for a great drama. I also loved how the first season of the show focused on the last place teams, the underdogs rather than the Ferrari, the Mercedes, the Red Bull, the teams that you see at the front of the pack.
And I thought that there was an interesting story to be told about an underdog team in trying to not win the championship but just trying to win one race against these titans of the sport. So that’s where it started. And lucky for me, I had a contact who was in Formula One that I could reach out to, so I did.
On filming the racing sequences, and creating the immersion and intensity…
Well, the first thing I did was I reached out to Lewis Hamilton who gave that incredible intro, and obviously he lives that sport every day. He’s one of the greatest of all time and asked him to be my partner on making this film. So having Lewis gave me this incredible in into this world.
We actually 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 and transmitters for making this film. So, every time you see Brad [Pitt] or Damson [Idris] driving this movie, they’re driving on their own in one of these real race cars on a real F1 track. So that’s kind of how we approached the making of this film.
We couldn’t just shoot at the track without the race going on. It would’ve been the wrong dynamic. So, we were actually there on race weekend with hundreds of thousands of people watching us finding these time slots between practice and qualifying, that Formula One graciously afforded us.
So, we’d get these 10- or 15-minute slots where we’d have to have Brad and Damson ready in the cars, warmed up with hot tires ready to go, and as soon as practice ended, they would pull out onto the track. We’d have 24, 30 cameras ready, rolling, and I’d have to shoot these scenes in these very short, intense, high-speed windows. But the crowd you’re seeing was really there in the stands. I don’t think the crowd realized that Brad Pitt was in the car that was in front of them.
The big challenge was just the camera system itself. I mean, we had to develop a brand-new camera system taking everything we learned on Top Gun: Maverick and pushing it much further. You can’t put 60 pounds of gear onto a race car and expect it’s going to perform the same way. So, we took those Top Gun cameras, and we worked closely with Sony, sizing them down to something about a quarter of the size. And then on top of that, something I really wanted to do on this film was actually be able to operate and move the cameras while we were shooting, which was something we weren’t able to do on Top Gun.
On the importance of story and characters…
It always starts with a great script and a great story. I knew that no matter how accurate or exciting the racing is, it doesn’t mean anything if you’re not telling a story supported with great characters. So, it all starts with the script and worked with Ehren Krueger, who also worked on Top Gun: Maverick. He wrote an incredible script for us to start with.
And then the most important thing a director does beyond developing the script is casting. Casting is everything. And the group of actors that we pulled together for this film is pretty incredible. Javier Bardem and Brad [Pitt] together, their friendship, which is an old one- three decades old! – really is the core of this story and of this film and just seeing them together on screen is really special.
Kerry Condon, she plays the team technical director, so she’s the person in charge of designing the car and the engineers and the drivers. There’s some healthy tension there on every team, and it makes for a great relationship between the two of them. And then Damson Iris, who people might know from his television career, but maybe not from the movies. I’m really excited for people to see him here going toe to toe with Brad on a big screen and a big story. So yeah, we have an incredible cast of supporting actors as well. And yeah, it’s a great ensemble.
On working creatively with Sir Lewis Hamilton…
Well, Lewis was instrumental in not only the technical aspects obviously, but in the real kind of formulative stage of the movie, formulating this narrative. We tell the story of Sonny Hayes, who’s kind of veteran racer, and then Joshua Pierce, who’s a rookie. Lewis has been both. He’s been the rookie almost winning his first season in Formula One and now with Seven World Championships. He’s kind of seen it all. So, his perspective on shaping the narrative of these two characters and kind of giving me 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 him.
Thank you to Warner Bros. Pictures and Apple Original Films for allowing us to attend the press conference. F1 is in Australian cinemas June 26.
