F1: The Movie

A Formula 1 race is easy to film but surprisingly difficult to convey in a way that makes you feel it. Cameras have been capturing the sport for decades from nearly every conceivable angle, yet the television broadcast can only convey so much of what it means to hurtle toward a turn at more than 300 kilometers per hour. Joseph Kosinski starts exactly there in F1: The Movie. His film doesn’t set out to explain motorsports, but rather to make speed a physical experience. The story he builds around it is decidedly classic. The way he brings it to the racetrack is not.

Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) was considered one of Formula 1’s greatest talents in the 1990s before a serious accident derailed his career. Decades later, he drifts from race to race as a driver until his former teammate Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) brings him back to Formula 1. Cervantes’ team, APXGP, is under pressure and desperately needs a victory. Sonny is brought in to help – and there he meets Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), a young driver who has little interest in sharing his future with a veteran whose best years seem long past.

It comes as no surprise that this develops into a story of rivalry, experience, and one last chance. F1: The Movie has the familiar narrative structure of a classic sports film and makes little attempt to hide it. The veteran driver knows things that can’t be gleaned from telemetry data. The young driver has talent and confidence, but must learn that speed alone doesn’t make a complete race car driver. Between them lie generations, egos, and differing ideas about how to win a race.

Brad Pitt fits exceptionally well into this framework. Sonny isn’t the kind of character who constantly has to explain how experienced he is. Pitt plays him with that relaxed naturalness that has become one of his most effective qualities. A glance at the track, a brief remark to the mechanics, or the calm before a start are often enough. Sonny comes across as someone who’s been racing for so long that nervousness no longer serves any practical purpose.

The film certainly romanticizes this attitude. Sonny is the analog racer in a world of data, simulations, and high-precision technology. He trusts his instincts, recognizes opportunities where others see rules, and occasionally treats motorsports like a gambler who wants not only to be faster but also to read his opponents. This isn’t always subtle. But Pitt has enough charisma to turn this deliberately old-fashioned character into more than just a collection of cool gestures.

Damson Idris has the more difficult task. Joshua must be confident enough to function as a serious competitor without merely coming across as an arrogant rookie driver waiting for Sonny’s lessons down the line. His skepticism toward Sonny is understandable: From Joshua’s perspective, a man whose great Formula 1 future lies decades in the past is joining his team, yet he’s still treated as if the younger driver must prove himself first. The tension between the two therefore works best when the film doesn’t simply view them as student and teacher.

But the characters and plot are ultimately only part of what Kosinski is aiming for. As with Top Gun: Maverick, he’s interested in the question of how real movement can be captured using the tools of a major Hollywood film in such a way that speed doesn’t remain abstract.

To achieve this, F1: The Movie was filmed during actual Grand Prix weekends. Pitt and Idris drove specially prepared race cars themselves for the shoot. Cameras were integrated into the vehicles in such a way that faces, the track, and movement could all remain part of the frame at the same time. What’s crucial is the proximity to the driver. Asphalt whizzes past beneath the car, competitors appear in the driver’s field of vision, and turns close in faster than the eye can comfortably process. The camera doesn’t just convey that a car is moving fast; it conveys just how little time remains at this speed between perception and decision.

It is precisely this that gives even relatively minor racing moments their weight. An overtaking maneuver doesn’t have to end in a massive collision to be thrilling. A gap of just a few centimeters can be enough. A braking point becomes a decisive moment. A curve suddenly takes on a dramatic quality.

Hans Zimmer’s music enhances this physical quality without simply drowning out the sound of the engines. Sound is, in any case, one of the most important elements of the film. Engines aren’t just background noise here. Varying RPMs, gear shifts, tire sounds, and the abrupt transition between speed and a standstill give the racing sequences their rhythm. Combined with Stephen Mirrione’s editing, this creates a form of action cinema that draws its energy less from destruction than from precision.

This authenticity, however, has an interesting limit. F1: The Movie is set squarely in the world of real Formula 1, yet tells an unmistakably Hollywood-style story. Real racetracks, Grand Prix weekends, and the presence of the actual sport lend APXGP credibility. At the same time, the screenplay takes artistic liberties whenever a more thrilling race or a clearer emotional climax takes precedence over sporting plausibility.

This may irritate motorsports fans. Anyone who scrutinizes every strategic decision against realistic Formula 1 logic will find plenty to debate. But Kosinski isn’t making a documentary. Real-life Formula 1 provides the material and texture; the storytelling remains that of a major sports film.

More problematic at times is the predictability off the track. The conflicts between the veteran and the young driver follow familiar paths, and Sonny’s personal story also bears clearly visible hallmarks of the classic comeback drama.

Sonny Hayes is, at his core, a classic Hollywood character: a man who gets a chance to do once again what he was once exceptionally good at. Joshua, on the other hand, finds himself where Sonny was decades earlier—at the beginning of a career in which talent has not yet revealed what kind of driver and person he will become.

Thus, F1: The Movie ultimately tells a decidedly familiar story using techniques that make it seem exciting all over again. Its greatest triumph isn’t in making us believe that Brad Pitt could become a Formula 1 world champion. It’s in making us forget, for a few laps, that we’re even watching a movie.