Domenicali admits Brad Pitt movie presents challenge for F1

The as yet unnamed film is being made by the team behind Top Gun: Maverick, with Lewis Hamilton serving as a producer and consultant.

It is set to start production in the coming weeks from a base at Silverstone, with some of the action to be shot around real race events with the filming fitted around the regular schedule.

Pitt, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Joseph Kosinski met team bosses at last year’s US GP in Austin, and talks have continued since then on how teams will be involved.

While stressing the film’s importance in terms of promoting the sport, series CEO Domenicali has cautioned that F1 will have to “control” the production so that it doesn’t interfere with the real action on race weekends.

Domenicali told a meeting of F1 investors: “That's another way to show what we want to do, something different.

“When we started the collaboration with Netflix, the [F1] community said what's going on? This is not our place to be.

“And now we understand the power of it. And then we added the very strong presence with social media, making sure that all our drivers and teams are very active in promoting the sport.

“And that's another tool with the movie. Actually, we're going to start the shooting in Silverstone very soon, and you will see it will be the first movie when basically, they will be within the racing event.

“It will be quite invasive in terms of production, it's something that we need to control in a way, but it will be another way of showing that F1 never stops.”

Jerry Bruckheimer American film producer

Photo by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images

Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei stressed that F1 cannot rely on Netflix series Drive to Survive as a long-term promotional tool, and that the film is another step in raising awareness of the sport.

"The Simpsons has gone for 20 years, but there aren't that many shows that run that long,” said Maffei. “Drive to Survive is wonderful. But we cannot rely on Drive to Survive to be our only promotion vehicle forever.

“You’ve got to keep it fresh, change the game. And that's one of the things I'd like to think we've done with the team entering F1. Credit Stefano, what we've done more recently around other kinds of Instagram and TikTok and the like, we're keeping it fresh and different.

“This movie, kind of like Vegas, is going to be a whole other level. As much as Drive to Survive is enormous to a lot of people around the world, I still go places and people say, ‘Huh?’ Its audience is not that big. It may be big among this group, but it's not that big.

"A Brad Pitt movie with Lewis Hamilton consulting, and with Bruckheimer and with the director from Top Gun: Maverick – we've already seen some of what they're going to do, and how they're going to skin these cars. They took the technology from Top Gun, and it's going to be amazing.”