Four hidden clues in Brad Pitt’s new F1 movie teaser

Elizabeth Blackstock
F1, starring Brad Pitt, will be released this summer.

F1 has revealed the first clip from the long-awaited 'F1' movie, starring Brad Pitt.

The millions of sports fans who tuned into the Super Bowl LIX last night were treated to a brief 32-second teaser for Brad Pitt’s new movie, F1, which is set to debut later this summer.

The teaser was composed of brief two- to three-second clips pieced together with little context, encouraging fans around the world to begin parsing the clip for clues — and there are four big ones that we’re going to break down.

Four hidden clues in the new F1 film teaser

Yes, that is Daytona International Speedway

While there was plenty of discussion about the authenticity of the racing shown in the new F1 clip, there was one brief scene that saw many fans grow skeptical of the film right out of the gate.

That clip seemed to show fireworks lighting up the sky at the Daytona International Speedway during the Rolex 24 — and many fans questioned why that track would be included at all.

There’s actually a good reason for the track to be featured in the film! While F1 naturally focuses on, well, Formula 1, the whole premise of the movie is that retired F1 driver Sonny Hayes returns to the sport to mentor a stunning rookie named Noah Pearce.

But Hayes wasn’t entirely retired from racing: In fact, he had become an endurance racer, and in 2024, Pitt was filmed driving a Porsche 911 GTD car at the Rolex 24. It’s likely that the footage filmed at Daytona will serve as the backdrop for Hayes’ invitation to return to Formula 1.

And that means no F1 cars will be spotted competing at Daytona.

Max Verstappen: Ultimate rival?

Max Verstappen appears to be the antagonist of the F1 film.

We’ll dig into the sheer number of wrecks featured in this new clip in a moment, but at least one of them involves a tag from the Red Bull Racing driver that shoves protagonist Sonny Hayes off the track.

Interestingly, as some fans have pointed out on social media, clips that include the back of Verstappen’s helmet also appear to have erased the stars that denote the Dutch racer’s F1 World Championships.

Much has been made about Verstappen’s potential role based on just a few clips, with some fans proclaiming him as the villain in both this new film and in Netflix’s docuseries Drive to Survive. Some fans have posited that this could be the result of Lewis Hamilton’s role in the film, while others have suggested the film accurately captures Verstappen’s hard-charging driving style.

Exactly what role Verstappen — and other contemporary F1 drivers — will play in the movie remains to be seen.

More on the F1 movie with Brad Pitt:

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👉 ‘Massive’ Brad Pitt F1 movie predicted to have bigger impact than Drive to Survive

Esteban Ocon gets the wrecking ball treatment

Without a Pastor Maldonado or a Romain Grosjean on the grid, the latest F1 trailer seems to imply that Esteban Ocon has taken over as the sport’s certified weapon.

In one particular clip, Ocon appears to make an audacious pass up the inside on Sonny Hayes, only to make contact with the APXGP driver and shove him off the track — possibly as a result of a crunched front wing.

The Ocon incident is just one of several crashes shown in the trailer; I counted four distinct wrecks in just 22 seconds, including one crash that saw a car get airborne.

It’s likely that the trailer has combined all of the biggest action scenes in one easily digestible format in the same way that NASCAR creates its Daytona 500 commercials with “The Big One” in mind.

Fireball crashes return in 2025

Fans on social media were quick to point out another brief clip that appears to show a driver attempting to extinguish a massive, fiery wreck — one that we can assume has taken place in a Formula 1 car. Those fans were skeptical; modern safety standards have largely removed the threat of massive fires, so this flame-licked scene was inaccurate.

Of course, those fiery crashes haven’t been entirely prevented, as Romain Grosjean could attest with his F1 career-ending wreck at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix.

What stands out to me in that scene is the fact that a fellow driver appears to be extinguishing the flames. While it may very well be that the driver extinguishing the car was the one behind the wheel, there’s also a possibility that this scene is mimicking the desperate efforts of David Purley attempting to save the life of his friend and fellow F1 driver Roger Williamson at the 1973 Dutch Grand Prix.

At Zandvoort that year, Williamson had flipped his March in a crash and was trapped inside his cockpit as the car burst into flames. The marshals weren’t prepared to cope with fire; as a result, driver Purley parked his race car and ran to the wreck, trying and failing to save his friend by overturning the chassis and by using a fire extinguisher.

F1 seems to value these historic call-backs; one early poster showed a helmeted Brad Pitt photographed in such a way that it appeared to mimic a popular photo of the late François Cevert.

Of course, it’s impossible to tell from such a short clip if the intention of the fiery wreck is to pay homage to the dark and complex nature of Formula 1’s history — but it wouldn’t be the first nod to the past that the film has shared.

Read next: Opinion: Netflix would be the ideal broadcast partner for Formula 1 in the USA