F1: Brad Pitt movie expected to take F1 to the stratosphere

–by Mark Cipolloni–

And so, you think F1 is huge now?

Just wait.

Formula 1 has high expectations for the potential of its forthcoming F1 film starring Brad Pitt and co-produced by Lewis Hamilton.

F1’s Netflix series Drive to Survive has won praise for attracting new viewers to the sport since its launch five years ago. It has attracted a much younger audience and many more female fans to F1.

Women love Brad Pitt, so the potential to attract even more Women to the sport has the F1 bosses salivating.

However, Liberty Media president and CEO Greg Maffei said he expects the forthcoming Brad Pitt F1 film to have a much greater impact, comparing it to the forthcoming Las Vegas Grand Prix.

“This movie, kind of like Vegas, is going to be a whole other level,” Maffei told a Liberty Media investor Q&A in Las Vegas Friday.

“As much as Drive to Survive is enormous to a lot of people in this room and 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. It’s going to be amazing.”

“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.

“That’s one of the things I’d like to think we’ve done with the team entering Formula 1, credit to Stefano [Domenicali, CEO]. What we’ve done more recently around other kinds of Instagram and TikTok and the like, we’re keeping it fresh and different.”