A year ago, Brad Pitt was a fixture at Formula 1 races not just as one of the many famous fans taking a stroll around the paddock area, but in a fire suit filming an ambitious (and expensive) new movie with Apple Films. Pitt and Damson Idris star in the upcoming movie, which is in very good hands in the realism department as it is being produced by Lewis Hamilton and directed by Joseph Kosinski, who did Top Gun: Maverick.
On Sunday, prior to the British Grand Prix at Silverstone — where Pitt, Idris, and company were back for another round of filming after the strikes last year cut their filming time short — we got the first teaser trailer for F1 and it looks incredible.
This is F1. Starring Brad Pitt.
In cinemas Summer 2025.#F1 #F1Movie pic.twitter.com/YQHvqNs5Ir
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 7, 2024
The only dialogue we hear in the first trailer is Pitt telling his engineer that he needs the team to “build the car for combat” in the turns, noting they don’t have the straightaway speed to compete. She replies wondering “How am I supposed to make that safe?”, earning a quick quip from Pitt of “Who said anything about safe?”
From there, we get a solid minute of clips from the track, where Pitt got in the car to create an extremely real feel to the action, with a look very similar to Top Gun: Maverick as Kosinski highlights the realism by putting a camera right in their face to show that’s really them in the car — albeit a modified F2/F3 car that’s a touch slower — to heighten the stakes. We also see cameos from a ton of F1 stars — including former Haas principal Guenther Steiner getting the bird flipped at him from the Pitt team pits — as they took full advantage of having free reign on race weekends.
With a summer 2025 release, we probably won’t get anything more on the film until early next year — it wouldn’t surprise me if we got a Super Bowl ad to capture the sports audience — but the first look is certainly promising in terms of how the movie will look and feel.
