F1: The Movie

Fast moving and brightly coloured, F1 is a spectacle that in many ways is a perfect reflection of its source material. That includes the physical. It is absolutely clear in its intent despite some things that look like twists. It's also the commercial, as its title properly includes the circled R of a registered trade-mark. For a movie where the clothes and cars are plastered with brand-names it even manages to crowbar in product placement.

That's after the main thing it's selling, which is Formula One itself. Celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, the pinnacle of motorsport is a place where financial engineering is as common as aerodynamics. If you've ever enjoyed a race then there's something here for you. That's beyond the open-wheel competition whose restrictions and regulations include poetic gems like 3.7.6.a:

"For the purpose of allowing suspension members and their fairings and driveshafts to protrude through the bodywork and provided that the result of adding the aperture does not subvert the intention of regulation 3.7.4, a single aperture may be added for each suspension member and driveshaft. No such aperture may have an area greater than 12,000mm2. No point on an aperture may be more than 200mm from any other point on the aperture. Individual apertures may adjoin or overlap each other. At the legality ride height defined in Article 10.1.4, the aperture must enclose the suspension member, including its fairing, or driveshaft for parts forward of XR= -55"

That's a lot of words about holes, but the film does its best to suspend disbelief and move things forward not with carbon-fibre struts and pistons but chemistry. Damson Idris as young driver Joshua Pearce, Kerry Condon as aerodynamicist Kate McKenna, Javier Bardem as desperate team owner Ruben Cervantes and, as the driver of their delivery, Brad Pitt. As Sonny Hayes, he's cast in the mould of Tom Cruise' in Top Gun: Maverick. A (minimally) damaged, wiser, charismatic helping hand, full of the kinds of tricks that are simultaneously the oldest ones in the book and only in the movies.

Hayes apparently has history in the (motor)sport, and archive footage of his turn in the heyday of cigarette advertising. There's Senna in his red and white McClaren, our boy in his bright yellow something. One of the bits of archive footage is of Martin Donnelly in the 1990 Lotus, though those sponsors would years later also have been on Benetton. That seems much more likely for a digitally composited Pitt (the younger) and a similarly spritely Bardem. There's mention of fashion houses as well as at least one sly smoke on the pit-wall. This isn't just an advertisement, it's one for a system of advertisements, a circus of commerce, an exercise in logistics more laden with references to canon than any comic book movie.

It's also propulsive if not powerful, more than enough to catch you in its wake and pull you along. It might have wind-tunnels and complex suspension geometries but what it is really pushing is excitement. If you stop and think about it there's plenty to be concerned with, but in the moment? Whoosh.

I think the only time one female character talks to another is a mother ushering her child out of the way so her father can work. There's a mum, and a love interest, and a member of the pit crew who gets something amounting to a narrative arc that involves listening to a man's advice. There's probably about as much testosterone floating about as there is petroleum, and that's being burnt at a rate of knots, if not rods to the hogshead.

The fictional team APX are so integrated into F1 marketing that you can get die-cast versions of their cars alongside the other ten real teams. They really did get them onto tracks, during races, and that makes the work of five effects houses and a graphics firm al the more impressive. That Sonny dreams in VHS is perhaps a nod to the expected demographic. That on-board cameras and actual presence partnered with what must be assumed to be digital substitution put Pitt and Idris into the action is a tremendous feat. Seated in the front-row of the cinema, it's hard not to lean into corners. Once you're committed to that the rest follows.

Director Joseph Kosinski has a background in advertising, and this is perhaps a perfect outlet for his talents. There's mention of other media, but such is the power of F1 branding that this Apple films production mentions a Netflix show. He co-writes with Ehren Kruger, and I'm not sure where to put this in his litany of adaptations, remakes, and sequels. This might be all of them, owing a variety of debts to prior 'art' like Le Mans '66 and Rush. The prototypical sports movie can take advantage of diegetic commentary to explain things, and F1 brings in recognisable faces and voices (including Murray Walker) to good effect.

There are some fascinating choices. While there's plenty of friendship and grudging respect and workplace dalliance there's also corporate chicanery to go with the wiggly bits on the track. That's a note that's lifted wholesale from Le Mans '66 which devoted almost as much time to steering committees as it did to plain old steering. There's some gamesmanship that descends into the unsportsmanlike as if a lesson from either School For Scoundrels. There's even stuff from the stewards and technical teams that'll get pulses racing as quickly as the sub-clause quoted above. The 'formula' named is literally a set of rules, and F1 follows those of genre scrupulously.

If you're already a fan then F1 gives you the sport (and Brad Pitt) on the big screen. If you're not then this might be enough to convert you, the size and sound are fitted for cinema. With IMAX available as well this is again as close to flying as you can get on the ground. Like circuit racing, F1 returns to its starting point and makes a big show of not going very far. It does so very quickly though, and with plenty of thrills along the way. It's got sound and some fury, but they're not entirely signifying nothing - that's what sponsorship pays for.

* p 23-24, 2025 Formula 1 Technical Regulations 23 07 April 2025 © 2025 Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile Issue 3

Reviewed on: 09 Jul 2025