Movies Like F1

Frequently asked about F1

Common questions people search for, with answers written by us at MoviesPack.

• Is the F1 movie based on a real story?▾

  No, F1 is a fictional story about veteran driver Sonny Hayes returning from retirement to race for a struggling team called APXGP. While it was filmed at real Grand Prix weekends with cooperation from Formula 1, the FIA, and actual teams, the characters and plot are invented.

• Is the F1 movie a hit or flop?▾

  F1 was a major hit, becoming the highest-grossing film in Apple Original Films' history and crossing more than $600 million worldwide at the box office. It also drew strong reviews from critics and audiences, with praise for its racing sequences and Brad Pitt's lead performance.

• Why does Sonny Hayes come out of retirement to join APXGP?▾

  Ruben Cervantes, Sonny's old friend and the team owner, recruits him because APXGP is on the verge of being sold off after a winless season. Sonny, who has been drifting between racing gigs since a near-fatal crash ended his F1 career in 1993, agrees partly out of loyalty to Ruben and partly because he is chasing the unfinished feeling of never having won at the top level.

• What is the conflict between Sonny Hayes and Joshua Pearce?▾

  Joshua is APXGP's brash young rookie who sees himself as the team's future star and resents Sonny being parachuted in as the experienced number-one driver. Their rivalry is built on clashing philosophies — Joshua relies on data, social media presence, and raw aggression, while Sonny races on instinct and uses unorthodox tactics like deliberately causing safety cars to reset races. Over the season they evolve from antagonists into a genuine team, with Joshua eventually learning to trust Sonny's racecraft.

• What is the significance of Sonny's 1993 crash?▾

  The crash at Spa ended Sonny's first F1 career and left him with lasting injuries, and the film treats it as the wound he has been running from for thirty years through Le Mans, Daytona, and Baja gigs. His arc is about confronting that trauma — he openly tells Joshua that the moment just before the crash, when everything went quiet, is the feeling he has been chasing ever since, reframing racing as a spiritual pursuit rather than just competition.

• How does Sonny use 'combat' tactics to help the team win?▾

  Sonny repeatedly engineers chaos on track — triggering safety cars, baiting rivals into mistakes, and sacrificing his own race to set Joshua up for points. The most pointed example is when he deliberately spins or causes incidents to bunch the field and neutralize a faster car's advantage. Kate, the technical director, initially views these moves as reckless cheating before realizing they are calculated applications of the regulations to give an underdog team a fighting chance.

• What happens in the final race in Abu Dhabi and why does Sonny walk away?▾

  In the season finale Sonny wins his first Grand Prix after thirty years, with Joshua finishing on the podium and APXGP secured from being sold. Rather than chase a championship, Sonny leaves the sport on his own terms — the win was never about trophies but about reclaiming the moment he lost in 1993. The closing scenes show him back at an amateur desert race, suggesting the racing itself, not F1's prestige, was always the point.