F1 MAKES A PITT STOP

Big stars and fast cars combine in a summer bid to fill theaters and grow a global fan base

- SEAN GREGORY

FORMULA ONE TEAMS TREAT THEIR TRADE secrets like matters of national security. In a motor sport where milliseconds separate champions from also-rans, hiding technical know-how from opponents is as key as a fresh pair of tires. So when Joseph Kosinski, director of F1 the Movie—the summer-blockbuster hopeful starring Brad Pitt and hitting theaters and IMAX on June 27—tried to gain access to the inner workings of Formula One, a rush of déjà vu hit him. After all, Kosinski made Top Gun: Maverick, the 2022 naval-aviator smash that grossed $1.5 billion, with the support of the U.S. Department of Defense. “It was the same level of security,” he says, “that I experienced when I went to some secret bases.”

Kosinski spent a year bugging Toto Wolff, team principal of the Mercedes—AMG Petronas F1 team, for permission to film at the Mercedes race simulator. Most Mercedes employees themselves can’t access this space at headquarters, 70 miles northwest of London. But Wolff finally relented. So in the movie viewers will see Pitt and Dam-son Idris, who respectively play Sonny Hayes and Joshua Pearce, drivers for the fictional APXGP team, practicing on Mercedes’ high-priced toys. “We were keen on contributing to making this a success,” says Wolff, who along with F1 president and CEO Stefano Domenicali is credited as an executive producer. “And that means you cannot be half pregnant and say, ‘Yeah, we’re playing along, but no, we don’t want to let you into our factory.”