Is the F1 movie based on a true story? What’s real in F1 (2025)

Is the F1 movie based on a true story?

No. Apple, the studio behind it, calls APXGP a fictional team outright, and Formula 1 calls it a fictional eleventh team on the grid. The main characters, APXGP drivers Sonny Hayes and Joshua Pearce, are made up too. We checked the f1db database, which covers every driver and team in the championship since 1950: there is no APXGP team in it, and no drivers with those surnames.

The set-up is fictional as well. Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) was once a promising Formula 1 driver, but a crash cut short his path to the title. Decades later his former team-mate Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), who owns the struggling APXGP team, asks Hayes to come back. Hayes’s new team-mate is the rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris).

What is real in the film is the backdrop: real circuits, real Grand Prix weekends and real Formula 1 drivers. All the films about Formula 1, including the ones based on real events, are collected in the article “Best F1 movies”.

The film at a glance

Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton was more than a producer. He was involved in the film from the early stages, and according to Kosinski he helped shape the story of its two heroes, the veteran and the rookie.

What’s real in the F1 movie

According to the studio and Formula 1, a lot of it is real:

• Championship events. The film was shot during real Grand Prix weekends, together with Formula 1, the FIA, all ten teams of the time, their drivers and the race promoters.
• Circuits. In the 2023 and 2024 seasons the crew filmed at Spa, Mexico City, Monza, Silverstone, the Hungaroring, Suzuka, Zandvoort and Yas Marina. They also filmed at circuits outside Formula 1, such as Daytona, and Pitt named Paul Ricard, the Circuit of the Americas and Las Vegas too.
• Drivers. Formula 1 drivers play themselves in the film.
• The grid. The first filming weekend was the 2023 British Grand Prix: Pitt and Idris stood on the starting grid next to the real drivers during the anthem.
• The formation lap. At several events the APXGP cars did the formation lap with the rest of the field — for example, at the back of the pack at the 2024 British Grand Prix.
• At the wheel. Pitt and Idris drove the APXGP cars themselves and spent months preparing for it. Professional stunt drivers were also filmed for some scenes.

What’s made up

The team, its drivers and their races are fictional. The APXGP cars did not take part in any Formula 1 race: according to Formula 1, the racing scenes were created with special effects in post-production. For filming, the cars were given their own track sessions during race weekends.

The APXGP car itself isn’t a Formula 1 car. It was built by GK Evolution, who took a Formula 2 chassis and lengthened and widened it with spacers to almost Formula 1 size; Mercedes Applied Science made the F1-style bodywork. Two cars had a real Mecachrome Formula 2 engine, two more a V6 from the GP3 era, and one was electric, for filming in the pit lane. How a Formula 2 car differs from a Formula 1 car is explained in the article on F1 and F2.

There was no eleventh team in the championship during the filming years either: in 2023–2025 there were ten teams.

Has anything like this happened in real F1?

Partly. No one has ever come back to start a Grand Prix after a break of decades, as Hayes does: the longest gaps between starts are about ten years. We found them in the f1db database, counting only Grands Prix the driver actually started and leaving out the Indianapolis 500, which was also part of the championship from 1950 to 1960.

A new, eleventh team did appear in real life — but after the film. In 2026 Cadillac joined the grid, and for the first time in ten years the championship had 11 teams. How the other teams came about and changed over the years is told in the article “The oldest F1 team”.

The film’s awards

The film won the Oscar for Best Sound at the 98th Academy Awards on 15 March 2026. It was also nominated in three more categories: Best Picture, Film Editing and Visual Effects. In January 2026 Apple called F1 the highest-grossing sports film of all time.