We are merely weeks away from the highly anticipated global release of the F1 movie. With the Monaco Grand Prix around the corner, Formula 1 drivers and their partners gathered in the Principality for a private screening ahead of the race weekend.
The official F1 TikTok account captured the moment as the drivers arrived in style at the screening. Special shoutout to Mercedes driver George Russell, who arrived in his AMG ONE hypercar with his partner Carmen Montero Mundt beside him. Lewis Hamilton also turned heads as he pulled up in the back seat of a Ferrari Purosangue. As for reigning world champion Max Verstappen, he was streaming to Twitch back in his apartment under the account name @FranzHermann69.
Toto and Susie Wolff were in attendance, and according to TMZ, several other team principals were also lucky enough to be invited to the showing.
The upcoming movie, titled F1, but now marketed as F1 The Movie, sees Hollywood join forces with the sport to create a one-of-a-kind production. With drivers confirmed to be on-screen alongside the official cast and Hamilton himself being a large part of the movie’s making, this level of collaboration is unheard of.
F1 Movie with Brad Pitt
Photo by: WarnerBros
Directed by Joseph Kosinski, known for his work on Top Gun: Maverick, and led by actors Brad Pitt and Damson Idris, it promises to be a hit on its release next month.
The plot centres around Pitt’s character, Sonny Hayes, being pulled from an early retirement back into the sport to help a small but promising F1 team, APXGP. Partnering with the young rookie driver Joshua Pearce (played by Idris), the two fight to build the team from the very bottom.
With scenes captured during real Grand Prix weekends, the movie was given unprecedented access, allowing the team to use on-track racing footage alongside real cars. In fact, the fictional team was given a fully functional pit garage at the races it attended, giving a home to Pitt’s and Idris’ cars – two modified Formula 2 cars built by Mercedes.
“The first thing I did was I reached out to Lewis Hamilton, and obviously he lives that sport every day,” Kosinski said on producing such a feat.
“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.”
Wolff came up with the idea of using real race cars to film, and the production team eventually bought six F2 cars to build the racing scenes around.
“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.”
The film will see its international release on 25 June, following its its United States and Canada release two days later.
