Brad Pitt didn’t mind the bruises, the neck workouts, or hustling a single-seater at speed. What he couldn’t get behind was the simulator.
Speaking on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast, Pitt admitted he “didn’t like” the virtual prep much while training to play Sonny Hayes in F1: The Movie. “You know, the simulators are just like the video game simulators,” he told host Tom Clarkson. “I didn’t like them that much… we got spoiled… so I didn’t spend a lot of time in that.”
It’s a mildly ironic stance in modern Formula 1, where drivers live in the sim between race weekends. But it fits his character. Hayes is written as an old-school lifer — more track walks and neck bands than data rigs and motion platforms — which makes Pitt’s aversion feel on brand rather than contrarian.
Accuracy was the word on set, and Apple Original Films didn’t cheap out. With F1 involved in the production, the team leaned hard into the real thing wherever possible. Pitt and co-star Damson Idris logged genuine miles in modified Formula 2 cars, including laps at Paul Ricard, and shot during live grands prix. Director Joseph Kosinski often had 10-minute windows slotted into official Free Practice to grab the footage he needed — real cars, real circuits, real timing.
F1: The Movie justified the effort. The film stormed past $600 million worldwide and hit streaming in late August, turning the fictional APEX GP into the most talked-about backmarker in years.
Still, there was one night when Pitt had to make peace with pixels: Las Vegas. With the 2024 race running late and track time limited, the production knew there’d be no margin to learn on the fly. “We had to for Vegas because we weren’t going to get any practice time,” Pitt said. “They were putting us out on the track, and we had a 10 minute window, and we’d never been. It’s late at night, and it’s cold, it’s wet… It’s an adventure.”
That’s the thing about the project: the movie looks like F1 because, mostly, it was. The simulator wasn’t his favorite toy, but that was never the point. Pitt got his education in the places that matter to racers — pit lanes, paddocks, and unforgiving asphalt — and the camera simply came along for the ride. In a sport obsessed with telemetry, he found the feel. And for Sonny Hayes, that’s exactly the vibe.
