'F1' director lifts lid on racing film's scariest scene, sequel plans

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Filmmaker also drops hints about a possible followups to ‘F1’ and ‘Top Gun’

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Published Jan 10, 2026 • Last updated 2 hours ago • 4 minute read

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Director Joseph Kosinski and Brad Pitt on the set of “F1: The Movie,” now streaming on Apple TV. Photo by Scott Garfield /Apple Original FilmsArticle content

As he travelled to Formula 1 races around the world to shoot last summer’s high-speed drama, F1: The Movie director Joseph Kosinski faced no shortage of challenges.

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Keeping his leading men, Brad Pitt and Damson Idris, safe in the driver’s seat as they whirled around racetracks at speeds of up to 180 miles-per-hour was at the top of his list.

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But as Kosinski filmed F1 at actual Formula 1 races like Silverstone — home of the British Grand Prix — and at the Hungaroring near Budapest; as well as Spa Francorchamps in Belgium; Japan’s Suzuka track; and Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina circuit, one track proved to be a bigger challenge than the others.

“The one that I go back to is Las Vegas. It’s a track that only exists for a few nights out of the year,” Kosinski, 51, says in a video call from Los Angeles. “Brad and Damson were not able to practise before the shoot. They gave us one, 15-minute slot in the middle of the night to shoot our sequence.”

Racing around the Vegas Strip for one of the movie’s most thrilling sequences was very dangerous, Kosinski says.

“It was freezing cold, the tires had no grip … If they had a mix up in a corner, they’d end up going into a wall,” he explains. “But the whole cast and crew came together, the technology we developed worked and we were able to pull off a very important scene in a very tight time constraint and do it safely. So that’s the one where I think I was really holding my breath the whole time we were shooting it.”

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Brad Pitt and director Joseph Kosinski on the set of “F1: The Movie” at Britain’s Silverstone Circuit in Northampton, England. Photo by Dan Mullan /Getty Images

Made in partnership with Formula 1 and its 10 teams, F1 was a global box office hit, becoming the highest-grossing film in Pitt’s 30-plus year career as an actor as well as the biggest movie ever for Apple Original Films.

The film, which recently made its streaming debut on Apple TV, was a big winner at last weekend’s Critics Choice Awards, taking home prizes for best sound and best editing. It is also up for two Golden Globes this weekend, nominated in the best cinematic achievement and best musical score categories.

But the creative team knew early on that they had a hit when they showed it to actual F1 drivers in early test screenings.

“Their response made me realize that all the hard work paid off,” Kosinski says.

Kosinski didn’t want to make the movie unless he could do it the hard way

F1 casts Pitt as Sonny Hayes, a washed-up race car driver who is lured out of retirement by an old friend (played by Javier Bardem) to mentor a hotshot rookie racer (Idris). Kerry Condon and Tobias Menzies appear in supporting roles, while real-life F1 champ Lewis Hamilton and Hollywood legend Jerry Bruckheimer hop onboard as a producer.

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Kosinski says that the world of Formula 1 is so drama-filled that it became the perfect jumping-off point for a comeback story that is, at its core, about redemption. But he had to do it for real.

Like his work on Top Gun: Maverick, in which Tom Cruise and his castmates flew actual planes, Kosinski shot F1 using practical effects. Pitt and Idris both had to learn to drive real race cars and cameras were placed inside the vehicles to give viewers the feeling that they were actually driving along the tracks.

Eschewing CGI for practical effects and shooting at actual races was the only way to go in order to make the movie as authentic as possible, Kosinski says.

“Audiences appreciate it when it’s done for real,” he explains. “Obviously, we have all these incredible tools that are available to us today, but there’s nothing like capturing something completely in camera, especially when it comes to a sport like Formula 1.”

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Pitt and Idris trained for months to drive the cars and they shot during real Grand Prix weekends.

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“You can’t fake that,” Kosinski says. “There’s something about practical, real photography that makes it feel more real and makes the story resonate more.”

Damson Idris and Brad Pitt in “F1.” Photo by Apple Films/ Warner Bros.

Not giving in to fakery was something he learned working with Cruise on Maverick, which also was a box office juggernaut when it was released into theatres in the summer of 2022.

It’s also more fun, he says of the highly technical production.

“I do this because I love filmmaking. Being able to travel around the world, following this sport, going to all these different tracks, it was an experience I’ll never forget and hopefully audiences appreciate that when they watch the film,” Kosinski says.

With F1 likely racing towards Oscar nominations later this month, the filmmaker is now eyeing possible follow-up stories for Sonny Hayes.

One dream project that won’t be happening is an F1 crossover with Cruise’s Days of Thunder. Kosinski mused about that “dream” possibility in earlier interviews, but it involves two different studios.

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But he is thinking about the next chapter for Sonny Hayes.

Brad Pitt as Sonny Hayes in “F1.” Photo by Apple Films/ Warner Bros.

“What is that next dragon that he wants to slay? We’ve got some fun ideas about what that could be,” he says. “It takes years to make these ideas come to life, but we’re having fun now just dreaming that up.”

Also on the horizon, a reunion with Cruise on another Top Gun movie.

“Ehren Kruger, who is the writer on F1 and one of the screenwriters of Maverick, is over his laptop as we speak, typing away on a very ambitious idea. So that’s another one that’s in the hopper that we’re working on.”

F1 is now streaming on Apple TV.

mdaniell@postmedia.com