The as-yet-untitled film is being produced by the team behind Top Gun: Maverick, with Lewis Hamilton serving as producer and consultant.
It will begin production at Silverstone in the coming weeks, with some of the action set to be filmed around actual race events, with filming taking place on the regular schedule.
Pitt, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Joseph Kosinski met the team bosses at last year’s United States Grand Prix in Austin and have continued to discuss how the team will be involved since then.
While stressing the film’s importance in promoting the sport, series chief Domenicali warned that F1 must “rein in” the production so as not to interfere with the actual action of the race weekend.
“It’s another way of showing what we want to do, something different,” Domenicali told an F1 investor conference.
“When we started working with Netflix, the (F1) community said what is going on? This is not the place for us.
“Now we understand the power of it. Then we added a very strong presence through social media, making sure all our drivers and teams are very active in promoting the sport.
“It’s another vehicle for the film. In fact, we’re going to start filming at Silverstone very soon, and you’ll see it’s going to be the first film, and basically, they’re going to be in a motorsport event.
“In terms of production, it will be very aggressive and it’s something we need to control somehow, but it will be another way of showing that F1 never stops.”
Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei has stressed that F1 cannot rely on the Netflix series Drive to Survive as a long-term promotional tool and that the film is another step in raising the profile of the sport.
“‘The Simpsons’ has been on the air for 20 years, and there aren’t many shows that last that long,” Maffey said. “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is great. But we can’t rely on PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds forever as our only promotional tool.”
“You have to keep it fresh and change the game. That’s one of the things I think we’ve done for teams going into F1. Thanks to Stefano, the work we’ve been doing lately around other kinds of Instagram and TikTok and so on, we’re keeping it fresh different from.
“This movie is kind of like Vegas, it’s going to another level. Even though Drive to Survive is huge for a lot of people around the world, I’m still going to some places where people say, ‘Huh? It’s The audience isn’t huge. It might be big in that group, but it’s not that big.
“Brad Pitt’s film is being consulted by Lewis Hamilton, and Bruckheimer and the director of Top Gun: Maverick – we’ve seen some of what they’re going to do and how they’re going to contribute to it. Car skin. They’ve got technology from Top Gun, which will be amazing.”
While Fernando Alonso is not yet in contention for a win in 2023, the Spaniard’s performance in a relatively strong Aston Martin looks like a comeback. Even with a slightly better car, the nearly 42-year-old F1 driver could take on Max Verstappen, a fight everyone including Pedro de la Rosa would love to see.
The race in Barcelona is significant because Pirelli raced on its 2024 tires just once before the FIA made a final decision on whether to go ahead with the original race plan – after the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, where Red Bull took part. There is no blanket for the game next season.
Current rules say the blankets will remain in place until 2024, and a decision on whether to change and abandon them must be made by July 31.
Several drivers who tested early prototypes of the blanketless tires in winter were not happy with them, with Lewis Hamilton calling them “dangerous”.
However, testing after the Bahrain Grand Prix showed more promise and Pirelli believes next week’s race in Spain will represent a further step.
An early design of the future structure will be used for this year’s British Grand Prix and was tested by drivers in Barcelona on Friday.
The FIA has approved the carpetless all-wet tyres, which were first used by Sergio Perez and the Haas drivers during the Monaco Grand Prix.
“It’s very important for us,” Pirelli’s chief engineer Simone Berra told Autosport of the Barcelona race.
“We’re testing most of the compounds, we have a lot of variants. We’re trying to test different structures to move forward because the goal is to have no blankets in 2024.
“So we need a structure that obviously needs to have good integrity, a high level of integrity, but needs to work really well at the start of the run when the pressure is lower and help the compound get to temperature and become in the operating range .
“So we’re continuing to develop new structures. Then we’ll start looking at new families of compounds that don’t use blankets. So I think that’s going to be a good test for us.
“The Barcelona we know is representative because we have high-speed sections. It’s a normal track, a more complete track compared to Bahrain when we tested at the beginning of the season.”
While not entirely representative, Bella believes the Bahrain test has helped point Pirelli in the right direction, with the tires due to run in Spain next week meeting the requirements.
Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-23, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23
“I think we’ve gotten some interesting stuff,” he said. “Obviously Bahrain is not really important for all circuits because you have a high temperature on the track and you have high traction demands and braking demands.
“So we need to test the new structure on different tracks where you have high lateral loads, higher severity and maybe cooler temperatures compared to Bahrain, just to see where we’re going in a good direction effort.
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“When we were testing in Bahrain, we had some good options out of the box. But there were still some things that needed to be fine-tuned, finalized, and this was a new proposal.
“So that’s what the test is for. We’re trying to develop a structure that helps generate the temperature on the tyre, so that the compound can work. That means the structure is less stiff and can increase stiffness as pressure increases .”
Bella believes Pirelli will finally get the FIA’s approval to ditch blankets in 2024.
The test will also see the Mercedes track debut of the team’s reserve driver Mick Schumacher, who will tackle the W14 on Wednesday after George Russell entered the race the previous day.
While Fernando Alonso is not yet in contention for a win in 2023, the Spaniard’s performance in a relatively strong Aston Martin looks like a comeback. With a slightly better car, the nearly 42-year-old F1 driver could challenge Max Verstappen. A fight that everyone, including Pedro de la Rosa, wanted to see.