F1 Review

Anyone who isn't a die-hard motorhead has probably felt the weird paradox of a Formula?1 race. It can be incredibly boring to watch twenty race cars go in circles. The audience sits at a safe distance from the thrills of neck-snapping speeds, half-second overtakes and hair-pin turns that only the drivers experience. But add narrative - commentary, backstories of team rivalries, and player dynamics - and, as the Netflix series Drive To Survive discovered, the sport comes alive with an exhilarating mix of high-octane driving and reality-TV drama. Suddenly it is no longer just cars going in circles but a contest of endurance, ambition, gossip, and mind games. This is a sport where off-track politics spill onto the asphalt, where half a second can cost a life, and where greatness is always one corner away from disaster - things that director Joseph Kosinski and Brad Pitt seem to have fully understood as they set out to make the definitive film about the sport.

The plot pairs one-time-great F1 driver Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) with promising rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) at the floundering Apex GP outfit. Team owner Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) makes a desperate plea to Sonny to join the team; the team has yet to score a single championship point, and nervous investors are sharpening the axe on Ruben.

Hayes, who is now a freelance racer for hire, living out of a van and chasing any seat he can find, agrees reluctantly. Pearce, meanwhile, is the template of ambition: young, cocky, brand-savvy, and suspicious of the "old man" Sonny's last-minute coup into the team. Hayes's arrogance bristles against Pearce's impatience as the two race - each chasing their own unclear, sometimes conflicting goals.

The story holds its focus on one persistent question: Why do the drivers do this? Why risk their lives in a sport so unforgiving, so reckless? "Why not tennis... or golf?" Ruben rhetorically asks Hayes, who lies in a hospital bed after a brutal shunt. Later, in a quieter, more vulnerable moment, Kate (Kerry Condon), the team's technical director, asks him the same question of Sonny. Kosinski's film becomes an attempt to translate into images and words this feeling of why, that is, for most F1 drivers, ultimately unexplainable and entirely experiential.

Kosinski, co-writing the screenplay with Ehren Kruger, recaptures the winning combo of their previous collaboration Top Gun: Maverick. Electrifying racing and witty banter combine to win over both lifelong F1 fans and total newcomers. The racing sequences are fully immersive: cameras skim kerbs, tyres smoke, crashes make you gasp.

For F1 obsessives the movie is a goldmine of real-world detail: circuit drone-shots, grid-walk cameos, press events with team principals, and podium moments. Drive To Survive captured the backstage drama, but F1, which was shot with real crowds during real races, feels like sitting in the cockpit. Hans Zimmer's background score, mixed in with Don Toliver and Doja Cat's rap bits, is the auditory equivalent of the mix of nerves and adrenaline that drivers experience.

Hayes's character remains intriguingly unpinned. He is the easy target everyone wants to label - "shithead", "swan" (apparently Gen-Z slang for a**hole), reckless "cowboy". But the plot doesn't box him in clichés. Pearce is equally layered: dangerously immature, but not immune to learning from Hayes.

The film wisely does away with rah-rah speeches and lets silence or a muttered joke do the heavy lifting. Pearce's impatience and Hayes' arrogance collide in unpredictable ways that makes every race feel like a gamble. Any simpler dynamic, say as mentor-and-mentee, and the racing stakes would have collapsed.

Brad Pitt almost too easily slips into Hayes' own cocky brand image tempered by experience. Pitt's characteristic grin is especially satisfying to watch in an exchange with team's investor Peter Banning (Tobias Menzies). Banning is planning a coup of sorts, and Hayes appears to be a willing participant so that Banning leaves feeling like he has got Hayes on his side, none the wiser that Hayes has other plans. Pitt barely speaks, yet the calculation in his eyes is crystal-clear to us. Newcomer Damson Idris matches Pitt beat for beat, equally adept at holding back the words and speaking through his eyes.

In the pits are Kerry Codon and Javier Bardem, in load-bearing roles keeping the drama light and pacey. Like his Stilgar role in the Dune series, Bardem plays the supporting character role so masterfully, bringing an almost accidental humour to undercut his precarious situation as the doomed F1 owner. Condon, playing the team's technical chief, somehow juggles drill-sergeant, confidante, love-interest without once slipping into cliché.

Kosinski once again corrals A-list talent into a film that plays well with all types of audience. F1 is tight, propulsive and surprisingly wholesome, a two-hour adrenaline rollercoaster that still finds room for genuine feeling. For Pitt, it lands alongside Cruise's Top Gun: Maverick as proof that a 50-something blockbuster icon can still strap in, hit top speed, and redefine what mature action stardom looks like.