F1: The Movie (2025) Review

When Sonny Hayes makes a shock return to F1 to help out his friend Ruben Cervantes save his team, he must attempt to mentor young wreckless driver Joshua Pearce.

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The opening scene paints the picture of Sonny Hayes still driving and racing in smaller events, well away from F1 where he had once dreamed of being a big star. We see that he still just wants to win and has that mentality. When his old friend Ruben turns up one day and asks him to save his team, job and quite frankly the life he had built up this was a difficult decision.

It also did not sit very well with Joshua Pearce who was a young driver who had seemed to be more in the limelight for the fame side rather than actually focusing on being a skilled driver who would podium or win races. Highlighting the issues with top level sport, and when making money and having fame becomes more important than the actual sport.

The thing is though Sonny is such a likeable character, he is older than every other driver in the current set up and that makes him a massive underdog, his training methods are old school and that makes us the audience really want to see him succeed. The sports science geek in me loved the comparison in his training to that of Pearce, where he combined the VO2 max and lactate testing as part of his preperation as well as the Batak reaction board. Sonny Hayes, ran on the course and bounced balls!

The film as a whole managed to demonstrate and capture the high intensity and crazy nature of formula one, but not only the drivers but the whole team and what everyone had to do for success. I also went to see it in IMAX as had heard great things about that format, seriously though if something is filmed in IMAX it is always worth it.

I massively enjoyed everything about the film and was super engaged from start to finish. Brad Pitt really does keep his high standards and I just love seeing him still taking on some very impressive and good roles. Damson Idris was also very impressive in a slight supporting role. Kerry Condon was a lovely scene stealer I loved her character and thought it was a very good way to show the struggles of women in high level sport. Javier Bardem another good supporting role and quite frankly he just seemed like he as having a hell of a good time.