Step into the thunderous, high-speed universe of formula One, but see it through a different lens. The new Apple Original Film, simply titled F1, isn’t just a showcase of screaming engines and lightning-fast cars. It delivers a compelling human story embedded within the sport‘s intricate world. Directed by Joseph kosinski, known for his breathtaking work on Top Gun: Maverick, this movie thrusts viewers into the technocratic intensity of F1, yet grounds it with a classic underdog narrative. Starring Brad Pitt and Damson Idris, F1 zeroes in on the personal stakes and team dynamics that often lie beneath the glamorous surface of the fastest sport on Earth.
Behind the Wheel: What is the F1 Movie About?
At its core, the F1 movie presents an almost deceptively simple premise: a driver must win a race. However, this basic goal unfolds within the incredibly complex environment of Formula One. Real F1 is a world defined by massive corporate powerhouses, known as “constructors,” like Ferrari and Mercedes. These entities pour immense resources into dominating the sport year after year. Drivers, despite their celebrity, can sometimes feel like extensions of the cutting-edge machinery they pilot.
The film consciously navigates this reality by choosing a different focus. It centers on a fictional, struggling team named APX. This team is on the brink of collapse, facing expulsion from the sport by the governing board unless they achieve a win during the season. This dire situation sets the stage for a dramatic last chance.
Brad Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, a veteran driver whose prime was decades ago. Described as a “salt-of-the-earth gearhead,” Sonny had washed out of Formula 1 but continued racing in various capacities, even driving a taxi at one point. His return to the sport is catalyzed by Ruben Cervantes, played by Javier Bardem, a former rival who now owns the flailing APX team. Cervantes recruits Sonny in a desperate bid to revitalize his crew and secure that crucial win.
Director Joseph Kosinski intentionally sidelined the dominant real-world constructors and their star drivers, such as seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton or reigning champion Max Verstappen. While these figures and teams are acknowledged as being in the background, the narrative spotlight remains firmly on the underdog APX crew. Kosinski stated his clear intention: “I wanted to tell the story of the team at the bottom.” This choice allows the film to strip away some of the technical and corporate complexities that define real F1, focusing instead on relatable human struggle.
The Unique Drama of Internal Team Conflict
One of the most fascinating aspects of Formula One, and a key element the film leverages, is the inherent dynamic within a team. Unlike many individual sports or even team sports where teammates work in absolute unity against external opponents, F1 constructors often field two drivers who, while collaborating to improve the car and team performance, are also in direct competition with each other. Both drivers aim to finish ahead of their teammate to prove their worth and secure their status within the team hierarchy.
This unique structure creates a compelling built-in conflict. The F1 movie harnesses this perfectly. Sonny Hayes’s primary challenge isn’t necessarily overcoming external champions from rival teams. Instead, his core struggle is learning to navigate the complex relationship with his younger, highly talented teammate, Joshua Pearce, portrayed by Damson Idris.
Kosinski highlighted this dynamic as particularly fertile ground for drama. He described it as the “notion of your teammate being your enemy,” a concept he found “great for drama.” This veteran-rookie pairing explores a dynamic of rivalry between peers. Kosinski contrasted this with the mentor-mentee or father-son relationship explored in his previous hit, Top Gun: Maverick, explaining that in F1 he sought to examine the relationship between two direct rivals sharing the same garage. The sport itself, Kosinski noted, is “literally engineered to create that internal team conflict,” bringing out both the best and worst in those involved. This makes F1 uniquely suited for intimate character-driven storytelling.
Capturing Speed and Strategy: Kosinski’s Approach
Joseph Kosinski has established himself as a director adept at handling visually and technically challenging subjects while injecting human elements. From the digital landscapes of Tron: Legacy to the aerial combat of Top Gun: Maverick, he is skilled at presenting complex systems in an engaging way. This expertise serves him well in translating the world of Formula One to the screen.
The specifics of F1 racing can indeed seem “arcane” to newcomers. The sport is a delicate balance of complex car engineering, demanding both aerodynamic efficiency and raw engine power. Success on track also depends heavily on strategic decisions, from the timing and execution of pit stops to intricate tactics for overtaking competitors. F1 doesn’t shy away from these technical details; it “gleefully plunges the viewer into all of its minutiae.”
Crucially, Kosinski aimed to make the sport accessible without oversimplifying it. Sonny Hayes acts as the audience’s bridge into this world. His down-to-earth nature is highlighted by small details, like practicing his steering grip using simple tennis balls rather than expensive training equipment, contrasting with his teammate’s more sophisticated methods. Kosinski emphasized that F1 is far more than just cars driving in circles. He calls it “chess at 200 miles an hour,” stressing the deep strategic layer beneath the speed.
The film’s racing sequences benefit from Kosinski’s directorial prowess honed on Maverick. Cameras are mounted directly onto the cars, putting the viewer incredibly close to the action. The film finds surprising ways to convey the sheer velocity and intensity of Formula One racing, capturing its “gorgeous, peculiar glory.”
Brad Pitt & Damson Idris: Anchoring the Story
The human element in this high-speed narrative is anchored by the performances of Brad Pitt and Damson Idris. Pitt embodies Sonny Hayes with a quiet intensity, portraying a man marked by experience and perhaps a touch of nostalgia for a different era of racing. He is the world-weary veteran, brought back for one last shot at glory. His performance is described as one where he is there to “glower and exude experience.”
Damson Idris plays Joshua Pearce, the talented young driver who represents the sport’s future. He brings a contrasting energy to the screen, brimming with “youthful, charismatic arrogance.” The friction and eventual development of the relationship between Pitt’s seasoned, reserved character and Idris’s ambitious, rising star form the emotional core of the film. Their dynamic is key to making the often-technical world of F1 relatable and emotionally resonant for the audience.
F1 as a Modern Underdog Saga
At its heart, F1 is a sports drama, fitting squarely into the “long-shot sports saga” genre. It follows well-trodden narrative paths familiar from beloved films like Hoosiers or Rocky. Sonny’s quest to overcome his past and prove his doublers wrong is a classic underdog arc. This familiarity, however, is framed as a pleasant strength of the movie.
The film manages to avoid some of the pitfalls that have affected previous racing movies. While some successful recent entries have leaned towards more artistic or niche approaches, and more extravagant productions have sometimes failed critically or commercially, F1 occupies a unique space. It’s a mainstream spectacle with the peaks and valleys of joy and despair inherent in following a struggling team. By focusing on the accessible underdog story and the compelling internal team conflict, the film creates stakes that feel less abstract than corporate battles and more engaging than merely tracking technical specifications.
Real-World F1 Connections
While the film features a fictional team and drivers at its center, it is deeply connected to the real world of Formula One. The collaboration with F1’s regulating body ensures a level of fidelity to the sport’s operational intricacies. Moreover, the film boasts a significant link to one of F1’s most iconic figures: Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton, a driver with incredible longevity and seven world championships, is listed as a producer on the film. His involvement lends authenticity and likely insight into the inner workings and pressures of the sport, particularly from a driver’s perspective. Hamilton himself is an example of the kind of veteran presence that Brad Pitt’s character represents, having competed at the highest level for 18 years, achieving unparalleled statistics like 105 wins and 104 pole positions. He recently made headlines for his upcoming move to Ferrari in 2025, illustrating the high-stakes nature of driver careers even at the pinnacle of the sport.
The director’s inspiration for focusing on the struggling teams also comes directly from real-world F1 content. Joseph Kosinski discovered Formula One by watching the popular documentary series Formula 1: Drive to Survive. He specifically recalled how the first season highlighted the last-place teams, prompting the question, “What’s it like to be the team that goes and knows they’re going to lose every weekend?” This perspective heavily influenced the film’s decision to tell the story of APX, the team at the bottom, rather than focusing on the established winners like Mercedes or Ferrari, who dominate the real-world constructor landscape with their vast resources. Even the mention of real drivers like Hamilton and Verstappen, though backgrounded, grounds the fictional story within the actual competitive ecosystem of F1.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the main focus of the F1 movie starring Brad Pitt and Damson Idris?
The F1 movie centers on Sonny Hayes, an aging former Formula One driver played by Brad Pitt, who is recruited to join APX, a struggling, fictional team owned by Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem). The team faces dissolution if they don’t win a race. The film focuses less on real-world F1 powerhouses and more on this underdog team’s fight for survival and the dramatic dynamic between Pitt’s veteran character and his talented young teammate, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris).
How does the F1 movie portray Formula 1 racing compared to reality?
While real F1 is heavily influenced by massive constructor teams and complex engineering, the film simplifies this aspect to prioritize human drama. Director Joseph Kosinski deliberately puts real teams like Ferrari and Mercedes in the background. Instead, it dives deep into the unique strategic elements of F1, like intricate pit stop tactics and overtaking maneuvers, depicting it as “chess at 200 miles an hour.” It balances depicting the sport’s technical “minutiae” with making it accessible to viewers unfamiliar with F1, using Brad Pitt’s down-to-earth character as a relatable entry point.
Why is the relationship between the two main drivers central to the F1 film’s drama?
The film highlights a unique aspect of Formula One: teammates are often direct competitors on the track. The main dramatic conflict is not an external rival but the internal dynamic between the aging veteran driver Sonny Hayes and his young teammate Joshua Pearce. Director Joseph Kosinski found this “teammate being your enemy” concept powerful, exploring a rivalry between a veteran and a rookie. This conflict is central because F1 is uniquely structured to create this internal team competition, bringing out intense personal stakes.
Conclusion
The F1 movie successfully threads the needle between showcasing a thrilling high-speed sport and telling a deeply human story. By choosing to focus on a fictional underdog team and the compelling rivalry between its drivers, director Joseph Kosinski creates an accessible and engaging drama. While real-world Formula One is dominated by corporate giants and complex engineering, the film finds its power in the personal stakes and team dynamics, demonstrating that the sport’s true intensity lies not just in speed, but in the strategic battles and human relationships unfolding at 200 miles per hour. Brad Pitt and Damson Idris provide strong anchors for this narrative, making F1 a welcome and uniquely focused addition to the world of sports cinema.
