F1 movie 'unlike anything done before' says director

Hollywood director Joseph Kosinski has been giving some behind the scenes details of what it's been like shooting the most ambitious movie ever made about motor sport.

The movie's iconic producer Jerry Bruckheimer has denied reports that the film F1 starring Brad Pitt has seen its production budget balloon to an eye-watering $300 million ahead of its scheduled release next year.

The film sees Pitt starring as veteran driver Sonny Hayes coming back for one last season with fictional team APXGP, paired with a hungry rising star played by Damson Idris.

The movie has been filming on location at actual Grand Prix events with APXGP sporting its own pit lane facilities, and Pitt rubbing shoulders with the likes of Lando Norris and Sergio Perez in the media pen at Silverstone last week.

Kosinski said that the level of authenticity of the film was what set it apart from any motor racing-themed movies in the past, with Pitt and Idris doing their own driving on track in front of fans during last year's British GP weekend.

• Read also: Bruckheimer denies ‘F1’ film budget set to hit $300 million

“We worked closely with Mercedes and their design team and aerodynamicists to develop a custom body that resembles the latest generation Formula 1 car," Kosinski told movie industry website Deadline.

“We worked with Mercedes and this was actually Toto Wolff’s idea. At one of our first meetings, Toto said: ‘You should build this off a Formula 2 car, but make it look like a Formula 1 car,’ so it’s a Formula 2 chassis and engine.

“They’re made for shooting movies but they are fundamentally race cars," he said. “They’re built specifically for this movie. They have 15 camera mounts built into them, including the recorders and batteries and transmitters."

“[Fans] all complain that racing movies aren’t fast enough because usually when they build these cars, they’re movie cars. You know, they look right, but they aren’t real race cars."

There will be no such complaints this time, but it's all come at a steep cost in terms of the complexity of the production. "The logistics of it are unlike anything I’ve done before,” Kosinski admitted.

“We’ve got Brad and Damson Idris actually driving the cars, which is pretty spectacular in itself," he said. "But to do that in front of a live audience and at the speeds they’re doing it and figuring out a way to capture it [is a whole new challenge].

“We’re shooting at the actual Grands Prix," he continued. "We’re working in very, very tight windows, shooting on the track, between practice and qualifying sessions, in front of hundreds of thousands of people.”

It helps to have the active participation of Lewis Hamilton as an executive producer, and he had input into making sure the film's stars looked like the real thing.

“We trained Brad for almost three months — Brad and Damson Idris — in various cars,” Bruckheimer revealed. “They started in Formula 3 and then moved up to Formula 2.

“Lewis says they’re really terrific. They’re just natural, natural athletes," he continued. “He was really impressed with them, with their driving.”

As well as Pitt and Idris, the film is expected to feature cameos from all the current drivers on the F1 grid, in much the same way that the likes of Graham Hill, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark, Jochen Rindt and Jack Brabham did in John Frankenheimer's seminal 1966 classic Grand Prix

The teaser trailer for F1 premiered internationally earlier this month, building anticipation for the new film’s global theatrical release on June 25, 2025.

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