How the ‘F1’ movie filmed its thrilling car sequences

The director of the F1 movie has given an insight into the huge amount of preparation that went into capturing the film’s thrilling car sequences – and how an idea from Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was pivotal in the process.

Set for release in June 2025, the Apple Original Films motion picture tells the story of former F1 driver Sonny Hayes – played by Brad Pitt – who returns to the sport to partner rookie team mate Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) at the fictional APXGP team.

Filming of the movie took place at Grand Prix weekends – with Pitt and Idris both getting behind the wheel for real – and director Joseph Kosinski was keen to seek the advice of those in the sport when it came to ensuring that the high-speed nature of Formula 1 was successfully depicted on screen.

This included input from Lewis Hamilton – who, alongside Pitt and Jerry Bruckheimer, acts as a producer – while a conversation with the seven-time World Champion’s former boss Wolff brought to life the possibility of using real race cars for the film.

Watch the thrilling new trailer for Apple Original Films' movie 'F1'

“The first thing I did was I reached out to Lewis Hamilton, and obviously he lives that sport every day,” said Kosinski.

“He's one of the greatest of all time and [I] asked him to be my partner on making this film. So having Lewis gave me this incredible in into this world, and one of the people he introduced me to was Toto Wolff, the Team Principal of Mercedes.

“And I started talking with them about wanting to capture the speed of this sport, and it was actually Toto who came up with the idea of – rather than making a movie car fast enough to kind of achieve these speeds – he said, ‘Why don't you start with a race car and take a real race car and then work the cameras that you need into that?’

FIND OUT MORE: All you need to know about Formula 1 and Apple Original Films’ highly anticipated movie 'F1'

“So we did that. We actually bought six F2 cars, real F2 race cars and worked with Mercedes AMG, the Formula 1 team and their engineers to build real race cars that could carry our camera equipment, recorders and transmitters for making this film.

“Every time you see Brad or Damson driving this movie, they're driving on their own in one of these real race cars on a real F1 track. So that's kind of how we approached the making of this film.”

f1_movie_poster16x9 (1).jpg — The 'F1' movie is set for release in June 2025

One of the key tasks involved in this process was adapting the film equipment to ensure that it would work on an F1 car, something that saw Kosinski build on his experience from working on the hit Top Gun: Maverick film.

“The big challenge was just the camera system itself,” Kosinski explained. “I mean, we had to develop a brand new camera system, taking everything we learned on Top Gun: Maverick and pushing it much further.

“You can't put 60 pounds of gear onto a race car and expect it's going to perform the same way. So we took those Top Gun cameras and we worked closely with Sony, sizing them down to something about a quarter of the size.

“And then on top of that, something I really wanted to do on this film was actually be able to operate and move the cameras while we were shooting, which was something we weren't able to do on Top Gun, so we have motorised mounts on the car as well.

“You have transmitters that are transmitting the picture back. We've got transmitters controlling the movement of the camera. I'm sitting at the base station with Claudio [Miranda], our cinematographer, looking at 16 screens.

“I've got camera operators on the controls for the cameras and calling out camera moves like a live television show while they're shooting.

“So much research and technology and development went into just being able to roll a frame of footage, in addition to the training for the actors and the logistics of shooting at a real race, so it was a lot of prep to be able to pull this off.”