Max Verstappen has only just found out he was in the F1 movie, and he did not sound convinced at first. When the cameo was described to him on a livestream, the four-time F1 world champion responded, “We did what?” and then, “Huh.”
That reaction is the reason the film is back in the conversation now. The movie came out last summer, but Verstappen’s surprise over a scene built around a real race moment has pushed his name and the blockbuster back into focus, especially for fans wondering how a major driver could be part of a film and not know it.
The scene in question takes place at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, where Brad Pitt’s character Sonny Hayes is shown racing Verstappen. The production used Pitt’s APX GP car in the on-track battle, and when Verstappen gets past Hayes in the film, he is shown raising his middle finger at the fictional driver. Hayes then says in the cockpit, “I deserved that.”
What makes the moment stand out is that the film was not built in a studio bubble. Crew members filmed scenes at real Grand Prix weekends during the 2023 and 2024 F1 seasons, and the movie folded real-world race footage into a story starring Pitt, Damson Idris and Javier Bardem. Verstappen has also previously admitted he has never seen the film, which makes his late discovery of the cameo less surprising than it first sounds.
The mismatch between what was filmed and what Verstappen says he knew is where the story lands. A real race moment involving one of the sport’s most recognizable figures was turned into one of the movie’s most memorable beats, yet the driver at its center says he was unaware it had even made the final cut. That leaves the cleanest question unanswered: whether the cameo was slipped into the film through the production’s access to real race weekends, or whether Verstappen was simply never told what the cameras had captured.
Whatever the answer, the movie has already done its part commercially. F1 passed $545 million at the global box office, overtaking Pitt’s World War Z, which made $540 million, and became Apple Studios’ highest-grossing theatrical release of all time. It also drew mixed reviews from fans, pundits and some of the F1 drivers involved, with Carlos Sainz questioning the authenticity of the storylines and some fans criticizing its treatment of female characters, including Kerry Condon’s role as F1’s first female technical director.
