Scuderia Ferrari pilot participated in the production of Joseph Kosinski’s feature film ‘F1’, who brings Brad Pitt as a veteran who returns to the tracks
“I really felt that And the cinema met, ”said the legend wrapped in front and behind the cameras in Joseph Kosinski’s new movie, with star Brad Pitt as a retired rider who returns to the tracks and Javier Bardem as the owner of a team. Following the huge success of Netflix’s documentary series “Drive to Survive”, Formula 1, which seeks to expand its audience, especially in the United States, completely opened the doors to Hollywood to a movie that plunges the viewer in the world of the maximum motorsport category with ultra-realistic images.
In the treadmill of top gun
“F1” tells the story of a fictional team, APX GP, in serious difficulties in the World Championship and whose owner, played by Bardem, uses Pitt, who plays Sonny Hayes, an former F1 prodigy whose advance was interrupted 30 years earlier by a serious accident that almost cost her life. Since his arrival at the team, Hayes must face the distrust of his young teammate, Joshua Pearce, played by British actor Damson Idriss.
Rivalry will quickly reach its peak, but gradually Hayes takes a mentor role for his boxer and helps him score points, playing with the regulation, but without breaking it, as the real F1 teams would do. Kosinski, director of Blockbuster “Top Gun: Maverick”, which raised impressive $ 1.5 billion (7.7 billion reais) in 2022, dedicated four years to realize the ambitious project, convincing F1 to join this adventure.
Hamilton in front and behind the camera
With Superstrela Pitt and Jerry Bruckheimer, one of the most recognized American producers, the project has also had involvement since the seven times world champion Hamilton (Ferrari). A big fan of cinema, the Briton is also producer of the feature film through Dawn Apollo Films, a producer he founded in 2022, in collaboration with Apple TV+, which also joined the project.
“We needed Lewis for the technical aspects and to ensure that we were faithful to reality. For a scene in Budapest, it was he who told us that such an event could only occur in such a curve, or that at that point the car should be in the first march and not on Monday,” explained Bruckheimer. Stefano Domenicali, the F1 CEO, quickly saw the business opportunity and considered it was an opportunity to make Formula 1 even more popular, especially in the United States, where “Drive to Survive” has exponentially increased interest in the category.
The United States currently host three major F1 season awards (Austin, Miami and Las Vegas). Before the Netflix series, it had only one. The F1 authorized the feature film team to shoot for 10 races around the world from Silverstone (United Kingdom) to Suzuka (Japan), passing through Budapest and Abu Dhabi. APX GP’s white and gold cars, F2 vehicles – the second category – disguised as F1, rolled in these circuits during Formula 1 free training sessions.
*With information from AFP
