Konsinki on the Hans Zimmer score, and Brad Pitt’s driving skills…

The phenomenal success of Netflix’s Drive to Survive – has stirred up a renewed thirst amongst the spectating public, for Formula 1 content. A series that floored the accelerator and sped into a sport hitherto seen as – for many – a dull, mechanically orchestrated, unappealing “isn’t it just the fastest car that always wins?” sort of activity. But this is the transformative power of the BTS camera, a dramatising narrative, insights into the struggles and otherworldly skill levels of drivers, can have.

According to BlackBook Motorsport, Formula 1 viewing figures for the last two race seasons are at an all-time high (average viewership for each race in the US was at 1.13 million in 2024, compared to 554k in 2018. A market usually far more concerned with the lap times of NASCAR vehicles), circuit attendance too (6.53 million across all race in 2024, a big increase from 2019’s 4.16 million).

An article in Forbes reveals that F1 is now “the most popular yearly sporting series, reaching a total audience of 750 million … in just the past three years, Formula 1 has seen global interest grow by 5.7 per cent or approximately 50 million new fans since 2021.”

The timing for an F1 blockbuster couldn’t be better. Add to that prospect a director, Joseph Kosinski – who so effusively pulled the audience into the cockpit for his age gap ‘need for speed’ sequel, Top Gun: Maverick; an impossibly handsome Brad Pitt, defiantly dishing out wise cracking sass in racing fatigues; the inclusion of real-life tracks (including the stunning, season climax of the Abu Dhabi F1), real-life Championship drivers (Lewis Hamilton, for example, who consulted on the movie too) and teams; the layering of the established sports movie seeding formula (clue is in the title) of having a beleaguered veteran (Sonny Hayes, played by Pitt) pulled out of retirement to mentor a promising young (maverick) upstart (Joshua “Noah” Pearce played by Damson Idris); and you’ve got box office podium practically guaranteed.

The trailer for Apple TV’s F1 dropped last night and even watching on the claustrophobic media window of a laptop, the signs are there that we’re in for some essential big-screen entertainment.

Ahead of the trailer’s release, we got to fire one question at F1 director Joseph Kosinski. This is what we asked, and this is what he said:

Can you tell us about the production techniques employed to ensure that we as an audience truly feel the intensity of speed coming from that car? And with the sound, getting those elements to be really believable, how did Hans Zimmer contribute to this as well?

“Sound is a huge part of racing. So we have a sound designer, Al Nelson, also from Top Gun: Maverick. He was there at the track recording all the real sounds of the real cars. We got microphones on the real F1 cars, which was, as you can imagine, very difficult to do because they count every gram that they put on those cars. So getting our recorders on the real cars was a huge aspect of getting it right.”

And then the other type of sound – the score, we’ve got Hans Zimmer creating another epic theme and score, and he’s got a lot to compete with sound wise in this movie. So he really brought it. The score for this film is something I’m really excited for people to hear. What Hans does, few composers can do – he can write a real theme, a real melody that you just can’t get out of your head. And he’s written another one here that can’t wait for people to hear.”

At that same press conference, Kosinski shared some interesting insights as to how well the film’s stars faired behind the wheel:

“Brad and Damson are both driving in this film and in order to get them into these race cars, it required months, literally months of training. But the first day was really fun. It was me, Brad and Lewis Hamilton at the track together, all of us jumping in cars and driving each other around in sports cars, which was one of those things, I’ll never forget having Lewis Hamilton as your driving instructor, but what we learned and what Lewis was really interested was seeing did Brad know how to drive right?

Because if Brad can’t drive, this whole film wasn’t going to work. And what Lewis was very happy to discover was that Brad had a lot of just natural ability right from the start, and I don’t know where he got that or if he was born with it, and he rides motorcycles, which I think has something to do with it, but he’s just a very talented, naturally gifted driver, which for Lewis after that first meeting gave him a lot of confidence that we might have a shot at pulling this off.

F1 is set to release internationally from June 2025, and from what we’ve seen – it’s a film, much like Top Gun: Maverick, that you’ll want to watch on the biggest screen you can find. Alongside Brad Pitt and Damson Idris, the film also stars Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, Kim Bodnia, Javier Bardem and some very familiar faces from the world of motorsport.

Images: moviestillsdb