A Plot Built on Second Chances

Writer Ehren Kruger focuses the plot on Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt), a prodigy from the late 1990s whose Formula One ascent ended in a brutal crash. Twenty years on, the struggling outfit APXGP persuades him to return, banking on his expertise to lift the team out of last place. Hayes’s comeback soon clashes with the goals of up-and-coming hotshot Joshua “Noah” Pearce (Damson Idris), a simulator-bred prodigy who treats the veteran as both mentor and measuring stick.

Owner Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) balances sponsor demands, while technical chief Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon) fuses Hayes’s seat-of-the-pants instincts with mountains of wind-tunnel data. Over their shoulders hovers venture-capital watchdog Peter Banning (Tobias Menzies), auditing the budget after every race weekend. The ingredients sound familiar—veteran, rookie, under-funded garage—but Formula One’s cut-throat politics promise a sharper, more modern bite than the standard sports-movie formula.

Cast and Crew Confirmed

Brad Pitt drove a detuned Formula 2–based prototype during live sessions at Silverstone and the Hungaroring, supervised by the FIA and Mercedes engineers.

Damson Idris spent simulator days at Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS, building realistic pedal timing for cockpit close-ups.

Kerry Condon anchors the garage debates with her usual mix of warmth and steel.

Javier Bardem channels bombastic charm as a team boss long on charisma and short on cash.

Behind the camera, Kosinski reunites with Oscar-winning cinematographer Claudio Miranda, whose lightweight rigs once turned Navy cockpits into thrill rides. Here they mount six 6 K cameras onto two custom “APX” cars, creating 360-degree G-force shots that promise to jolt popcorn.

Racing Scenes Shot on Real Weekends

F1 is a genre of motorsports when most movies based on motorsports run on a green screen, paddocks are embedded with the drama in F1. Pitt is seen driving through the pit lane in the APX-branded car during lunch at the 2023 British Grand Prix to the viewing of crews of Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes. Akin video material was provided by Hungary and closed-track practice was supplied at Spa and Las Vegas. The end product ought to be less like a digital wish-fulfilment and more like a greeting shake hand between plain fiction and the world of real competition.

Style: Kosinski’s Practical Speed

Kosinski calls the project “a symphony of carbon fibre and human ego.” Expect a cool-metal palette broken by flame-orange brake discs and the strobes of photographers in parc fermé. Practical sparks will replace fully CG crashes; pyrotechnics teams built break-off front wings engineered to shatter on cue, yet leave the car drivable for a reset take.

Interior drama plays out in fully dressed engineering bays constructed at Warner Bros. Leavesden. Monitor walls scroll live telemetry—numbers piped directly from a Mercedes test bench—while mechanics rehearse two-second tyre swaps until their knuckles bruise. For viewers, the hope is immersion first, spectacle second.

Musical Score Still Under Wraps

Apple’s press kit lists no composer, a rarity this late in post-production. Whether Kosinski re-teams with Harold Faltermeyer and Lady Gaga’s producers (as on Maverick) or courts F1’s orchestral-synth veterans remains an unanswered question. What is certain: the final mix will integrate true engine recordings, captured with throat-mic rigs on V-6 turbo-hybrids during winter testing.

Themes: More Than Fast Laps

Legacy vs. Innovation – Budget caps and data bans have levelled modern F1, APXGP’s shoestring fight mirrors that shift.

Mentorship and Mortality – Hayes must hand the keys to a faster generation without disappearing in the process.

Team Sport Disguised as Individual Glory – Thousands craft a car, two drivers take the blame.

Release Roadmap

Warner Bros. opens F1 in IMAX and premium formats on 25 June 2025, expanding nationwide two days later. Physical media and premium-video-on-demand dates will be set after box-office results, but current studio policy suggests a traditional multi-month gap before the film parks on Apple TV+, its exclusive streaming garage.

Why Anticipation Is Sky-High

Kosinski reinvigorated aerial photography by strapping real cameras into real F-18s. If he can replicate that kinetic honesty on tarmac—while giving Pitt and Idris the emotional angles to match tyre degradation curves—moviegoers could witness the most authentic F1 drama since Asif Kapadia’s Senna documentary.

For now, the pit light remains red. But come late June 2025, when the starter’s gantry counts down and those custom APX cars surge out of the pit lane, cinema speakers will fill with the rarest sound in Hollywood: genuine turbo spool echoing off real grandstands. That alone makes F1: The Movie a lap worth waiting for.