Director Joseph Kosinski trades fighter jets for Formula 1 race cars in his latest release F1 starring Brad Pitt, for which he reunites with Top Gun: Maverick cinematographer Claudio Miranda and screenwriter Ehren Kruger to deliver another adrenaline-fuelled crowd-pleaser.
But unlike Maverick, which was pivoted on a nostalgic and grounded emotional arc, F1 tries to balance the lack of emotional depth with grand visuals.
The story follows Sonny Hayes (Pitt), a washed-up American driver dragged out of obscurity to mentor a rookie prodigy in the Formula 1 championship. F1 would remind you of old films and shows — it’s part Rush, part Ford v Ferrari and part Drive to Survive.
Having been shot over 18 months at actual Grand Prix weekends, the film is ambitious in scale and immersive in execution. The real-life backdrop, from Silverstone to Monza, lends the film authenticity.
Hayes, Pitt’s denim-clad cowboy of the racetrack, is introduced tearing through the endurance circuit at Daytona. He’s pulled back into the world of F1 by his former teammate Reuben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), who now runs the hopeless Apex GP team, which hasn’t scored a single point in two seasons. His last hope? Pairing Sonny with his young, talented, and hot-headed rookie, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), in a desperate bid to turn their fortunes around.
Naturally, Sonny and Joshua clash. One is old-school and anti-establishment. The other is sleek, media-savvy, and painfully aware of how hard he’s had to fight in life.
As one of only two Black drivers in this fictionalised F1 universe (a deliberate nod to producer Lewis Hamilton, who appears in a fleeting cameo), Joshua shoulders fights for survival. Idris plays him with the right mix of bravado and vulnerability.
Kosinski’s race sequences are thrilling — Miranda’s camerawork often puts the viewer in the cockpit, veering perilously close to death at 300 km/h. But the script is where F1 spins out. Kruger’s screenplay touches upon deeper issues: racial representation, generational friction, and corporate interference. Each of these threads, however, is only lightly tugged, then discarded in favour of high-speed montages and hero moments.
The film’s most glaring flaw is the idea that a man in his 60s, battling a serious spinal injury, could jump back into the world of Formula 1 and start lapping across the track as if he was never on a break. What’s more frustrating is how Sonny’s wild, often borderline reckless tactics are celebrated as brilliant maverick moves instead of being called out for the rule-violations they so obviously are.
And then there’s the problem of undercooked supporting characters. Kerry Condon plays Kate McKenna, the first female technical director in the league. But her arc is reduced to an awkward workplace romance with Sonny. Meanwhile, Tobias Menzies’ Peter Banning, a member of the Apex GP board who wants to sabotage the team, feels more like a convenient plot device than a fully fleshed-out character.
What redeems F1 is Kosinski’s kinetic direction and Hans Zimmer’s thunderous score. The racing sequences are spectacular and are sure to give you an adrenaline rush. Shot during actual Formula 1 races, they pull you into the heart-pounding tension and the make-or-break decisions that happen in an instant on the tracks. And for F1 fans, there’s an added thrill: real-life stars like Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, and Lando Norris pop up in memorable cameos.