F1 The Movie Set To Release Tomorrow: What To Expect?

The biggest motorsport movie of the year is all set to arrive in cinemas on June 27 as F1: The Movie is finally upon us. It promises to be a blockbuster with Top Gun: Maverick-director Joseph Kosinski directing the story about a fictional eleventh F1 team with the drivers being Brad Pitt and Damson Idris. So, what should one expect?

The Story

The movie revolves around a fictional eleventh team joining the F1 grid: APXGP. The movie was commissioned before the actual Cadillac announcement came through. Hence, is it a precursor to the future? Maybe, who knows yet. However, APXGP is shown as a struggling team with Pitt’s character – Sonny Hayes – being called out of retirement to help his old teammate and team owner Javier Bardem out. Pitt’s teammate is a hot-shot rookie: Joshua ‘Noah’ Pierce (Damson Idris).

Together the two will battle it out for the F1 championship. Anybody getting a 2007 flashback where double World Champion Fernando Alonso and rookie Lewis Hamilton teamed up with a lot of sparks flying around in the garage? And also maybe mix a bit of the Brawn GP magic from 2009 and a classic Hollywood underdog winning story.

The Cars And Drivers

Each and every single car used, barring the APXGP ones, are the actual F1 cars from 2023. Hence, some of the drivers like Lewis Hamilton, Carlos Sainz Jr, Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo, will be seen in their older team colours or once again on the grid. In fact, Lewis Hamilton has been involved in quite a bit of the making of the film.

No wonder then that the actual APXGP cars are sort of pseudo-Mercedes-AMG F1 cars. They were initially F2 cars but with the engines replaced by electric motors and F1 aero packages. Mercedes and F2 stalwarts Carlin Motorsport were involved in making the cars.

The Authenticity

If you have watched Top Gun: Maverick, then you would have known that Kosinski prefers to shoot his action in real-life rather than have a lot of CGI. Hence, the same was done for F1: The Movie with specialised cameras developed with Apple to capture onboard footage that meets cinematic standards and not the typical ones we see live telecasted during the races. In fact, Apple has been able to make use of its learnings from making awesome cameras on the iPhone Pro Max series and similar technologies were used in the onboard cameras.

Shooting of the film was also done at a few races of the 2023 season, during special practice sessions at Silverstone, Hungaroring, Spa-Francorchamps, Monza, and Yas Marina circuits. In fact a bit of GT racing was also shot at the 24 Hours of Daytona, perhaps to show Pitt’s interim career.

And Its Lights Out And Away We Go!

So, all you F1 fans make sure you get to the theatres from June 27 onwards and please try and enjoy it in IMAX. It has already got an 87% score on Rotten Tomatoes. So, it surely promises to be worth it.