‘F1 the Movie’: How Las Vegas helped bring it to life

We’ve all had that week at work.

There was a project due or an uptick in responsibilities. Maybe a couple of key people were out. You were pulled in a thousand directions and weren’t sure how you’d get everything done.

Focus on it. Really try to put yourself back inside those moments.

Then throw Brad Pitt into the mix, along with everything that comes with a star of his magnitude, including a hundred-person film crew, and you’ll have a sense of what it was like in November when F1 and “F1 the Movie” descended upon the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

A whole new look at racing

Few summer blockbusters have had the access that “F1” enjoyed. Heck, some documentaries don’t get that close to their subjects.

Journeyman driver Sonny Hayes (Pitt) lives in a van, wears mismatched socks and hasn’t been on a Formula One track since crashing out of the circuit three decades ago. But when his old friend Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) is at risk of losing his struggling race team, Sonny signs on to drive for him and mentor promising rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris).

The movie follows the traveling circus that is Formula One to the last nine races of the 2024 season, starting with the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. The cast and crew were embedded throughout.

“They were so giving and opened up all their doors,” Pitt says of F1 in the film’s production notes. “We were able to shoot on race weekends, shoot on podiums, shoot during the national anthem. We had our own garage. We even shot on our pit wall while the races were going on.”

After months of training, Pitt and Idris got behind the wheels of Formula Two cars designed by Mercedes-AMG that were similar to, yet roughly $14 million cheaper than, their Formula One counterparts. By utilizing the “white space” in each weekend’s schedule — 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there — the actors drove on the actual tracks with fans in the stands.

The Las Vegas Grand Prix made international headlines when Pitt’s stunt double was filmed collapsing on the track in footage that didn’t make the movie’s final cut.

What viewers will see is some of the most breathtaking racing footage ever captured, thanks to new camera technology that could be mounted on 15 positions on each car. The result is the kind of immersive, you-are-there view of racing that you’d expect to see somewhere like Sphere.

‘Incredible placement’

When Brian Gullbrants saw Wynn Las Vegas on the screen, he put his fists in the air and cheered.

This was during the “F1” world premiere with the movie’s stars, three-quarters of the current Formula One grid and several thousand other bigwigs at New York’s Radio City Music Hall.

“My wife looked at me and said, ‘Putyourhandsdown,’ ” recalls Gullbrants, COO North America, Wynn Resorts. “I was so excited.”

Shortly after arriving in Las Vegas, Pitt’s Sonny enters his Encore suite, walks over to the window and stares out at the neighboring Wynn.

The scene, which Gullbrants calls “incredible placement in an unbelievable movie,” was filmed the Tuesday before the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Director Joseph Kosinski (“Top Gun: Maverick”) shot it on the floor where Pitt, the film’s other top stars and producers stayed.

“With the level of customers that we had and the celebrities that were here and the drivers that were here,” Gullbrants says, “we already had all the security details in place. … It went very smoothly. You would never know we were shooting a major motion picture in our hotel while we had all of these people here.”

He’s hopeful “F1 the Movie” will increase interest in the sport in those pockets of the world that haven’t yet embraced it and that it ultimately will lead to still more fans coming to the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Gullbrants already had one wish fulfilled when he spotted the Wynn logo in Pitt’s hands.

Sonny, a somewhat reformed gambler, is rarely without a deck of cards, whether he’s flinging them one by one across the room or blindly pulling one to stick in his pocket before a race.

He and Idris’ Joshua get to know each other during a poker game inside a supper club as they vie for control of the race team. (The club is implied to be Wynn’s Delilah, but those scenes were filmed on a soundstage in London.)

During the premiere, Gullbrants whispered to his wife how thrilled he was to see Pitt using the Wynn-branded cards he’d given the production, even though he was convinced no one else would notice.

“After the movie,” Gullbrants says, “five different people at the screening came up and said, ‘Wow, it was really great that you got your cards in there, too.’ ”

‘The glamour of Las Vegas’

Throughout most of “F1 the Movie,” Sonny is presented as something of a cowboy, a lone wolf in a sport that requires teamwork. By the time the action moves to Las Vegas, he’s ready to let down his guard, reveal some things about his past and prove he’s more than just a beautiful agent of chaos.

Such an important scene demands an exceptional location, which is where The Cosmopolitan came in.

“They were looking for a room that really captured the glamour of Las Vegas,” says Allyson Wadman, associate director of public relations for MGM Resorts International. “Something that was edgy, luxurious and kind of in the middle of all the energy on the Las Vegas Strip.”

The production found that in a Cosmopolitan suite that has a wraparound balcony overlooking the Fountains of Bellagio and a large section of the Las Vegas Grand Prix course. The thing about such a perfect location, though, is that it’s already a hot commodity among high rollers during race week.

“We try to be really flexible,” Wadman says, “especially when it’s a really great opportunity to showcase our property and the city itself.”

Planning for that shoot began in early 2023, before the strikes by the acting and writing guilds pushed principal photography back a year. When it finally came time to film on that Tuesday night in November, there was more than enough pressure and distraction to go around.

“You think about all of the street closures, the grandstands, all of the hundreds of thousands of people,” Wadman says. “Operationally, that is already a lot going on for all of the resorts on the Strip.”

The “F1” team removed light fixtures, rearranged the furniture and applied dark paint over the balcony’s white ceiling.

“Those small little details of the suite, we were having meetings on meetings,” Wadman says. Planning took “countless hours” over the course of several months.

‘That world-class scene’

Jason Strauss was watching Tiësto perform inside Omnia when the music stopped and the 1,500 or so clubgoers started milling about. Then it happened again. And again. For hours.

Three days before the Dutch DJ would play there again while the Las Vegas Grand Prix roared by, the nightclub at Caesars Palace served as a movie set filled with extras. (The club was used again by Rosé for that “Messy” video.)

It wasn’t the typical Omnia experience, even aside from the stops and starts. The production added its own lights to the club’s rigging, making the space brighter than ever. Footage shot in the 12 hours starting at 3 p.m. that Wednesday has been used in the movie’s trailers and promotional videos.

“It didn’t really feel that sexy watching it,” says Strauss, co-CEO of Tao Group Hospitality, which owns and operates the club. “But then seeing it in the trailer, it looked (expletive) sexy.”

Tao Group’s parent company, Mohari Hospitality, has long-standing ties to Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time Formula One world champion who’s one of the movie’s key producers. Tiësto was selected after being on both the production’s shortlist of DJs and the Tao Group roster.

“This is a major thing for our group,” Strauss says, “but it’s also a (big) thing for Vegas.”

The only time you really see Sonny and Joshua out on the town, taking in life away from the track, is when they’re in Las Vegas. After that poker game, set the night before the race, Joshua heads to Omnia to unwind.

“For them to say, when it comes to nightlife, Vegas has to embody that world-class scene, and of all the nightclubs in Vegas, they chose Omnia,” Strauss says, calling it “just a great accolade.”

Tao Group is developing Omnia outposts around the world, and Strauss sees being tied so closely to Formula One as a huge stamp of approval. Especially when “F1 the Movie” shows Joshua, a hot young driver who can do anything he wants, hanging out there.

“Guess what? That’s what it is in real life,” Strauss says with a confident laugh. “That’s why it’s going to resonate. It’s very authentic.”

Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4567.