Brad Pitt reveals what it was really like driving the APXGP “F1” cars

Brad Pitt has revealed what it was really like to drive one of the APXGP cars for the upcoming F1 movie. 

The cars built for the fictional team are on a Formula 2 chassis with the bodywork of a Formula 1 car, developed in collaboration with Mercedes. In the lead-up to the film’s highly anticipated release, iHollywoodTV shared a behind-the-scenes look at the making of F1, during which the 61-year-old actor described the experience of driving the cars as “awesome.” 

“It is such a high. It is unlike any high I’ve ever experienced before. It is shocking what these cars can do,” Pitt, who portrays Sonny Hayes in the film, explained. 

“And I think the first week, first month is really just learning to trust the car. The car will do it. The car will stick to the ground. The car will brake. Just trust the car. And this was a constant mantra of [mine].

“So, if you’re going down a straight and you have it pinned and they tell you you can brake at the 75 yard marker, and I mean when you brake it’s like you put all your force into it and this car will slow down in time you could go from 180 mph to 40 mph like that, in that amount of space.

“And to trust that the car is going to stop even when you’re heading for a wall is something you really… your mind, you’ve got to make the switch.

“The second one is that the car sticks in these high-speed corners. That’s the most shocking [thing]. You think there’s no [way], you know, any other car is going to roll. These things well, it’s the more you put into them the more it gets compacted to the ground, the better it sticks, the faster you can whip around this corner.

cars being filmed for new F1 film APEX starring Brad Pitt

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

“And I mean by the end of it all, we were hitting speeds that just felt like the physics of it all just wanted to rip your head from your shoulders. It was so awesome. So staggeringly awesome what these cars can do.”

Pitt also had the opportunity this week to drive an F1 car for the first time as he took out the 2023 McLaren MCL60 at the home of the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas.