What part F1 teams played in Brad Pitt’s new movie?

by

New Delhi: In a lot of sense, Hollywood brings reality as close as possible to fiction, and that is something the new Brad Pitt F1 movie has certainly done. The duo of producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Joe Kosinski had previously put Tom Cruise behind F18 and have now gone to all lengths to make the F1 film just as realistic.

For starters, Pitt and his co-star Damson Idris trained to become racing drivers, getting behind the wheel that were actually designed for the movie. Plus, Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time world champion, was on board as producer and provided his years of experience to pick the tiniest of details, including the car sounding to be in the right gear in certain corners and if the tyre strategy was actually feasible.

However, the biggest achievement of the movie is to use a real F1 paddock itself as a movie set. Giving the filmmakers a chance to operate on a weekend by F1 makes the movie only more believable. The fictional APXGP team just became part of the whole F1 calendar’s circus, getting their own garage setup and hospitality units at certain races of 2023 and 2024.

That is, though not just where the new F1 stopped, because Bruckheimer, Kosinski and their team even used three F1 team factories in the UK for shooting scenes. Of course, the most recognisable factory was the McLaren F1 factory, which, both technically and aesthetically, is amazing, with the factory having made an appearance in movies and TV series previously, including Fast and Furious: Hobbs and Shaw. The McLaren Technology Centre was a no-brainer with its glass windows that overlook a lake. 

How Brad Pitt and co integrated into F1 world

With a large APXGP sign on the outside sliding door, which is the factory’s entrance in reality, the movie really made the factory its own. The orange colour of the McLaren got replaced with APXGP colours, along with a photo of Pearce and Pitt standing side-by-side.  The inside, though, is the Mercedes factory in Brackley, which had been updated to black and white before the 2021 season and fit with the APXGP. The third F1 factory happens to be the Williams factory when Pitt’s character visits the APXGP wind tunnel. 

A wind tunnel is an off-limits area due to the sensitive nature of the area, but it just goes on to show how much the F1 bandwagon opened its door for the movie. Usually, a team uses the wind tunnel models when the factory has 60 per cent of its full strength in order to test cars in controlled runs within F1 rules, and in fact, some of the team members may never have gone to these rooms themselves.

While Williams did take some money, team principal James Vowles said that they didn’t make money out of it. Vowels described the four-day shoot and noted that the crew needed help with running the tunnel and even a car that replicated theirs. 

Since these runs are so expensive, there were obviously debates and inspections when FIA was informed that they were planning on hosting the film crew. Williams ensured that the APXGP models, which aren’t quite compliant with F1 rules, having different dimension that falls somewhere between F1 and F2 cars, didn’t give them any advantage that could be applied to the 2025 car.

All of this had to be done under FIA supervision, explained Vowles, without breaching any regulation. Despite the inconvenience, Vows maintained that the movie was going to be just as important as the Netflix show ‘Drive to Survive’, which documents the season of F1. The movie is believed to be increasing the fan base of motorsport.

How much are F1 teams themselves involved in the movie

All 10 teams have had their part in the movie, with some of the teams’ actual principals taking part in scenes as well. Mercedes F1 Chief Toto Wolff, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown and Ferrari’s Fred Vasseur all had brief speaking roles as well, with former Haas team boss Gunther Steiner also making a brief appearance. All of this does make the movie closer to how an actual F1 weekend feels. 

One of the most ambitious scenes, though, for many has to be filming on-site during races that merged into the movie without much of a problem. There’s the ambitious scene at the start of the grid at Silverstone, where two APXGP cars had to line up at the back of the field right before the start of the British Grand Prix back in 2023 and were pulled away without disturbing the race.

What amazed everyone was that the filmmakers had just one shot at these shoots, without a single chance at a re-take. Perhaps that will remain impressive, along with Brad Pitt, aged 61, doing those high-speed runs and turns. Most importantly, it manages to make core fans be both excited and happy with the amount of perfection and thought put into the movie.