The director of F1 explains exactly how the movie’s realistic racetrack scenes were brought to life. The upcoming movie stars Brad Pitt as Sonny Hayes, a retired Formula One racer who is brought back to support a young new hotshot, Joshua “Noah” Pearce (Damson Idris). While the F1 story is fictional, the production provides realism in many ways, including working with the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile to craft the movie and bringing in real-life racing legend Lewis Hamilton as a producer in addition to his onscreen appearance playing himself opposite other racers including Sergio Pérez and Lando Norris.
ScreenRant was in attendance at a virtual Q&A with director Joseph Kosinski promoting the new trailer for F1. During the conversation, the topic turned to the realistic racing sequences, which were shot during actual Formula One races ahead of the 2025 Austrian Grand Prix. Kosinski revealed that the crowds in the stands were real, because they used small windows of time to shoot scenes “as soon as practice ended.”
Kosinski mused that “I don’t think the crowd realized that Brad Pitt was in the car,” but shared that the presence of the real crowd on an actual race day added a “heightened quality” to the production, which also shot certain dramatic sequences on site. Read the director’s full quote below:
The location is one thing, but on Race Weekend, it just becomes this whole different world. It’s like a traveling circus. So 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.
And so there was definitely this heightened quality to every race. We were also shooting dramatic scenes on the grid before races, so it was a very unique way of working rather than having a whole day to shoot a scene like you normally would on a movie. We had these nine or 10 minute slots, so it was like a live stage play, but in front of hundreds of thousands of people shooting at 180 miles an hour, literally. So it was an adrenaline rush every weekend, but what we captured is something you can’t fake, you can’t stage.
What This Means For F1
The Movie’s Realism Will Be All-Encompassing
One of the most notable aspects of Kosinski’s new movie is that the majority of Brad Pitt’s F1 driving is real, with the actors actually behind the wheels of vehicles that were racing at 180 miles per hour. That sort of high-octane filmmaking will help push the racing scenes to feel as realistic as possible. However, the crowds that were assembled at the time of filming will likely be just as important for making the movie feel right, as Kosinski says.
The crowds at Formula 1 races are commonly shown onscreen…
While computer-generated extras are frequently used to fill out stadiums in movies, beyond those in the first few rows, this approach likely would not have worked quite as well in Kosinski’s new movie. Real crowds are especially important in F1, because the crowds at Formula 1 races are commonly shown onscreen as part of any telecast, so a fake one might have immediately stood out when compared to the real-life people who are normally surrounding a race, ruining the realism of the driving.
The Movie’s Perspective Is Unique
In addition to propelling the high-octane action, this real-life approach to bringing the race scenes of F1 to life will provide a unique perspective in the upcoming 2025 movie. In addition to putting audiences in the head of Sonny Hayes, they will also offer an interesting reversal on the way that Formula 1 racing is commonly presented onscreen. Instead of an outside-in approach where the crowd views the racers inside the cars, the movie will feature the perspective of those drivers looking out upon the crowds and the racetrack in as realistic a manner as possible.
F1
- Release Date
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June 25, 2025
- Director
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Joseph Kosinski
- Writers
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Ehren Kruger
- Producers
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Brad Pitt, Chad Oman, Jerry Bruckheimer, Jeremy Kleiner, lewis hamilton, Penni Thow