How ‘F1’s’ Sound Team Gave the Film Its Sense of Scale and Authenticity With Unprecedented Access to Formula 1 Tracks, Grand Prix Races, Camera Footage and Audio
The roaring engine, the downshifting of the gears, tires on gravel, and crowds chanting were all aural elements that give Joseph Kosinski’s “F1” its adrenaline rush.
The team at Formula One Media & Broadcast Center, led by Tim Bampton, Director of Content Delivery, Emma Penney, Engineering Manager, Audio & RF, Wendy Hendrickx, Head of Live Production, and Dean Locke, Director of Broadcast & Media, were vital collaborators in giving Kosinski and his sound team unprecedented access to the 2023-2024 Grand Prix season.
Kosinski explains, “Our collaboration with Formula 1 included working very closely with their broadcast team. We integrated our recording equipment into their pipeline which allowed us to capture 4K imagery from over 20 of their trackside cameras simultaneously and uncompressed sound from the nearly 100 microphones surrounding the circuit. I would brief their phenomenally talented camera operators before a race on the types of shots and story beats that I was looking for and they would capture those moments during the actual Grand Prix.”
Bampton adds the collaboration “was a marriage of a big scale Hollywood movie with the pinnacle of live sports broadcasting.” Kosinski wanted to place audiences inside a racing car and have them feel like they were going 200 m.p.h. That unique partnership helped bring the film to life by providing reference material and knowledge to the film’s sound team.
The Apple Original Film stars Brad Pitt as former Formula 1 race car driver Sonny Hayes, a retired driver. Javier Bardem plays Ruben, the boss of an underdog racing team who convinces Sonny to return to the sport to partner with and mentor rookie driver Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). The film picks up halfway through the Formula 1 season, and by bringing Sonny into the mix, Ruben hopes the team lands a podium finish.
Formula One’s Media and Broadcast Center in Biggin Hill, about an hour outside of London, is the sport’s beating heart. Bampton and the team are no strangers to the twists and turns that they cover in meticulous detail week after week during the Grand Prix season for broadcast.
As engineering manager, Penny placed 150 microphones around the actual tracks. Collaborating closely with supervising sound editor and sound designer Al Nelson, she helped captured sounds from all three practice sessions, qualifying races and the Grand Prix races.
Whether they were in Silverstone, Bahrain or Hungary, the key was to be as close as they possibly could. In addition to Penny’s mics, production sound mixer Gareth John used specific DPA microphones, similar to what they use in the actual F1 races, strategically placing them on the cars, around the track and all the various turns.
Nelson listened to every single audio strand collected by Penny. Those strands proved invaluable to the team. “We could educate ourselves on exactly what it sounded like. It’s very different from track to track.” He adds, “We would find certain angles, and places where we needed to hear a downshift at this turn in this track, and we could filter in.”
As they played through the raw footage, they listened out for the golden moments. Each circuit, car and driver had a distinct sound, and that needed to carry across: “You try and find those unique characteristics and apply them to the drama of our film and our drivers.”
One golden moment came in the scene where Red Bull racer Max Verstappen crashed into McLaren driver Oscar Piastri at Abu Dhabi in 2024. That was an authentic moment, happening in real time, and it was pilfered from the actual F1 event, which Nelson put into the film.
With Penny’s audio strands, and John’s recordings, Nelson was able to make the film’s sound feel as authentic as possible. He says, “Some of the microphones are closer than others, but there’s this visceral feeling that we were trying to evoke. We have a lot more tools with our mix stage and what we can do. We tried to take it to the next level, was to feel like you were on top of the car, as it took the curbs, or as it accelerated off the grid. That took some time and experimentation.”
Penny explains that crowd sounds were tricky. “Sometimes the fans don’t’ cheer as much.” But that’s where Whittle would step in. She would “collect crowd sounds, additional ADR, and chants.”
F1 superfan and rerecording mixer Juan Peralta spent years following the sport, often getting up at 4:30 a.m. to watch races. He was tasked with putting the film into theaters with that bombastic Imax sound. As a fan of the sport, he felt immense pressure to get it right. The drivers’ helmet camera footage provided by the Formula One Media & Broadcast Center proved useful. He could watch the camera footage to see what gears the drivers were on and what they were doing at certain turns. Peralta says the driver perspective helped him “stay true to the sounds and what was happening with the upshifting and down shifting, and hitting the corners.” He adds, “It helped a lot for me to be able to get creative with some of these sounds and put them in the room and make them bigger and bolder.”
While the “F1” movie team had unprecedented access, they were also working with the Formula 1 team during Grand Prix weekends. Whether they were in Silverstone or Yas Marina, those action sequences were filmed on those same tracks. Says Bampton, “We found 15 minutes — 20 max — within the schedule. We said to Joe, ‘Once the serious business of racing is done and the track sessions are out the way, we’ll find whatever time we can.’ I can’t underline too much just how integrated the movie became in our world.”
Locke adds, “There was a massive challenge around that, doing a feature movie, in a really complicated live event, was immense. Having those two drivers (Pitt and Idris) on the grid at Silverstone, one of our biggest Grand Prix, in front of 450,000 people, but framing them out was quite interesting.” He goes on to say seeing the movie after “was hugely rewarding.”
Jerry Bruckheimer and Kosinski were often sitting alongside Bampton and Locke. Regarding the film’s dialogue, Bampton says, “On a couple of things, I said, ‘That’s not a line someone would say in that way, and Joe was super open to that input.”
For Rizzo, that reference material was key to maintaining authenticity throughout the sound mix. He says, “The dialogue department is hugely grateful to Formula One for collaborating and providing access to that material. We studied the myriad of tracks F1 shared from practices, qualifying runs and Grand Prix to accurately replicate and depict communications between the team manager and driver as well as to recreate live event environments and PA treatments. Additionally, our Skywalker dialogue crew worked endlessly alongside Formula One to collect paddock, garage and crowd recordings which allowed us to provide a thoroughly convincing race atmosphere in the film.”
Ultimately, “F1” roars to life, and the sound is precise because of how Formula 1, for the first time ever, opened its doors to Kosinski and his crew. He says, “The film would not have the sense of scale and level of authenticity without their vital contributions to it.”
Formula One’s Media and Broadcast Center in Biggin Hill
The team at Formula One Media & Broadcast Center, led by Tim Bampton, Director of Content Delivery, Emma Penney, Engineering Manager, Audio & RF, Wendy Hendrickx, Head of Live Production, and Dean Locke, Director of Broadcast & Media, were vital collaborators in giving Kosinski and his sound team unprecedented access to the 2023-2024 Grand Prix season.
Kosinski explains, “Our collaboration with Formula 1 included working very closely with their broadcast team. We integrated our recording equipment into their pipeline which allowed us to capture 4K imagery from over 20 of their trackside cameras simultaneously and uncompressed sound from the nearly 100 microphones surrounding the circuit. I would brief their phenomenally talented camera operators before a race on the types of shots and story beats that I was looking for and they would capture those moments during the actual Grand Prix.”
Bampton adds the collaboration “was a marriage of a big scale Hollywood movie with the pinnacle of live sports broadcasting.” Kosinski wanted to place audiences inside a racing car and have them feel like they were going 200 m.p.h. That unique partnership helped bring the film to life by providing reference material and knowledge to the film’s sound team.
The Apple Original Film stars Brad Pitt as former Formula 1 race car driver Sonny Hayes, a retired driver. Javier Bardem plays Ruben, the boss of an underdog racing team who convinces Sonny to return to the sport to partner with and mentor rookie driver Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). The film picks up halfway through the Formula 1 season, and by bringing Sonny into the mix, Ruben hopes the team lands a podium finish.
Formula One’s Media and Broadcast Center in Biggin Hill, about an hour outside of London, is the sport’s beating heart. Bampton and the team are no strangers to the twists and turns that they cover in meticulous detail week after week during the Grand Prix season for broadcast.
As engineering manager, Penny placed 150 microphones around the actual tracks. Collaborating closely with supervising sound editor and sound designer Al Nelson, she helped captured sounds from all three practice sessions, qualifying races and the Grand Prix races.
Whether they were in Silverstone, Bahrain or Hungary, the key was to be as close as they possibly could. In addition to Penny’s mics, production sound mixer Gareth John used specific DPA microphones, similar to what they use in the actual F1 races, strategically placing them on the cars, around the track and all the various turns.
Nelson listened to every single audio strand collected by Penny. Those strands proved invaluable to the team. “We could educate ourselves on exactly what it sounded like. It’s very different from track to track.” He adds, “We would find certain angles, and places where we needed to hear a downshift at this turn in this track, and we could filter in.”
As they played through the raw footage, they listened out for the golden moments. Each circuit, car and driver had a distinct sound, and that needed to carry across: “You try and find those unique characteristics and apply them to the drama of our film and our drivers.”
One golden moment came in the scene where Red Bull racer Max Verstappen crashed into McLaren driver Oscar Piastri at Abu Dhabi in 2024. That was an authentic moment, happening in real time, and it was pilfered from the actual F1 event, which Nelson put into the film.
With Penny’s audio strands, and John’s recordings, Nelson was able to make the film’s sound feel as authentic as possible. He says, “Some of the microphones are closer than others, but there’s this visceral feeling that we were trying to evoke. We have a lot more tools with our mix stage and what we can do. We tried to take it to the next level, was to feel like you were on top of the car, as it took the curbs, or as it accelerated off the grid. That took some time and experimentation.”
Penny explains that crowd sounds were tricky. “Sometimes the fans don’t’ cheer as much.” But that’s where Whittle would step in. She would “collect crowd sounds, additional ADR, and chants.”
F1 superfan and rerecording mixer Juan Peralta spent years following the sport, often getting up at 4:30 a.m. to watch races. He was tasked with putting the film into theaters with that bombastic Imax sound. As a fan of the sport, he felt immense pressure to get it right. The drivers’ helmet camera footage provided by the Formula One Media & Broadcast Center proved useful. He could watch the camera footage to see what gears the drivers were on and what they were doing at certain turns. Peralta says the driver perspective helped him “stay true to the sounds and what was happening with the upshifting and down shifting, and hitting the corners.” He adds, “It helped a lot for me to be able to get creative with some of these sounds and put them in the room and make them bigger and bolder.”
While the “F1” movie team had unprecedented access, they were also working with the Formula 1 team during Grand Prix weekends. Whether they were in Silverstone or Yas Marina, those action sequences were filmed on those same tracks. Says Bampton, “We found 15 minutes — 20 max — within the schedule. We said to Joe, ‘Once the serious business of racing is done and the track sessions are out the way, we’ll find whatever time we can.’ I can’t underline too much just how integrated the movie became in our world.”
Locke adds, “There was a massive challenge around that, doing a feature movie, in a really complicated live event, was immense. Having those two drivers (Pitt and Idris) on the grid at Silverstone, one of our biggest Grand Prix, in front of 450,000 people, but framing them out was quite interesting.” He goes on to say seeing the movie after “was hugely rewarding.”
Jerry Bruckheimer and Kosinski were often sitting alongside Bampton and Locke. Regarding the film’s dialogue, Bampton says, “On a couple of things, I said, ‘That’s not a line someone would say in that way, and Joe was super open to that input.”
For Rizzo, that reference material was key to maintaining authenticity throughout the sound mix. He says, “The dialogue department is hugely grateful to Formula One for collaborating and providing access to that material. We studied the myriad of tracks F1 shared from practices, qualifying runs and Grand Prix to accurately replicate and depict communications between the team manager and driver as well as to recreate live event environments and PA treatments. Additionally, our Skywalker dialogue crew worked endlessly alongside Formula One to collect paddock, garage and crowd recordings which allowed us to provide a thoroughly convincing race atmosphere in the film.”
Ultimately, “F1” roars to life, and the sound is precise because of how Formula 1, for the first time ever, opened its doors to Kosinski and his crew. He says, “The film would not have the sense of scale and level of authenticity without their vital contributions to it.”
Formula One’s Media and Broadcast Center in Biggin Hill