What you will love about ‘F1: The Movie’

Forget everything you’ve seen on social media, or what you’ve read about the new Formula 1 movie – you should absolutely go and see it. If not only to form your own opinions on F1 and see the latest attempt to bring the series into Hollywood.

The sport’s owners are desperate to crack the US audience and capitalise on the post Drive to Survive lull, so taking it to the big screen – with a huge budget and outstanding access – is one way to attempt it.

Will it work? Almost certainly, and here’s what you are going to love about it.

All Action

The movie’s makers purchased six F2 cars to shoot the action scenes, taking the technology used for the Top Gun: Maverick film, the 2022 hit with Tom Cruise, and not only making it smaller and lighter to fit in a race car, but also improving the quality of the images.

Working with Sony, the cameras were shrunk to a quarter of the size used in Top Gun, which allowed for more flexibility when mounting them in the car’s cockpit. Subsequently the racing scenes in the film are epic. Not only is the technology clever and of a high quality, one of the targets for the producers were to create the most authentic F1 movie.

To do this, they enlisted the help of Lewis Hamilton, who was able to guide them on overtaking manoeuvres and could spot elements to change in the post-production process – he was able to identify that in some scenes the cars in the movie were in the wrong gear for that part of the track.

Familiar faces…and brands

Familiarisation is obviously comforting but in this case, it also adds to the authenticity the movie makers are striving for. There are plenty of driver cameos, illustrating how integrated the film crews were.

There are speaking parts for Fred Vasseur and Zak Brown, while Toto Wolff has a slightly longer talking part at the end of the movie. F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali also appears, but there is no sight of the FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem.

Along with the drivers and team bosses is the inclusion of branding that fans are used to seeing at F1 races. Brands featured on the APX GP car, including SharkNinja, IWC and Tommy Hilfiger all get plenty of attention at various points.

Despite being set in 2023, the sight of any Rolex branding has been subtly removed following the conclusion of that partnership. It’s all rather smart. 

Easter Eggs

Despite initially saying this movie was not for hardcore F1 fans, there are still some Easter eggs buried in the movie, which runs for more than two and a half hours.

There are nods to the Monza banking, famous from the original F1 movie, Grand Prix, which came out in 1966 directed by John Frankenheimer.

There is also a reference and video of Ayrton Senna, which is a key part of the backstory. Although it has been manipulated, the 1990 accident that Martin Donnelly suffered in Jerez when his Lotus was ripped in two during practice was used in the film and forms the basis of Brad Pitt’s character, Sonny Hayes.

Then, there is the irony of Fernando Alonso congratulating Hayes after the latter deliberately crashed to benefit his teammate, given his significance in the 2008 Singapore GP crashgate saga.

Those familiar with F1 from the Drive to Survive era will also recognise Hamilton’s dog Roscoe and Guenther Steiner, both now no longer paddock regulars.

It’s a fun viewing that tries to cover a lot of ground, but ultimately it succeeds more than it fails and is sure to be a hit with audiences – whether they are already an F1 fan or not.