'F1' Movie Reveals How Dramatic Crash Scene Was Filmed

The makers of the F1 movie have revealed how they made one of the film’s most shocking scenes when Damson Idris’s character has a monumental crash at the Monza circuit.

The dramatic scene sees the car launch high into the air while spinning around. And although that may sound like a Hollywood script, it is actually based on a real crash that happened at the same corner to racing driver Alex Peroni, who was launched some 200 feet (60 meters) and landed in the catch fence.

To achieve this, the production crew installed a hydraulic ram, charged with nitrogen. But to lift the car that far, the car had to be fired at some 120 miles per hour into the ramp. The first attempt fell short.

“The car weighs differently with real cameras on it,” says director and producer Joseph Kosinski. “So I asked Keith [special effects] after the first take to crank the pressure up on the launch. I told him it is better to overachieve than underachieve.”

After increasing the power, the second take saw the car clear the set entirely and into the bushes, flying some 100 meters (over 300 feet). It was supposed to collide with the set, but Kosinski didn’t mind.

“One of the great things about live-action filmmaking is sometimes things don’t go exactly as you planned, but in those moments, sometimes you get more than what you hoped for,” says the man who also directed Top Gun: Maverick. “We’re just going to embrace it and make it part of the film.”

After the spectacular crash had been filmed, Kosinski wanted a shot of Idris in the car as it was crashing. They weren’t going to fire him like a missile; instead they put the actor on a 360-degree rotor rig and spun him around.

“We ended up doing five revolutions with Damson,” says special effects supervisor Keith Dawson. “He loved it. I think we wanted to go again.”

The sequence was topped off as Brad Pitt’s character Sonny Hayes arrived on the scene just as the crashed car had burst into flames. It involved Idris jumping into the burning vehicle so that Pitt could pull him back out.

The behind-the-scenes is a real eye-opener into the incredible production that went into F1. And it paid off; the film pulled in a staggering $600 million at the global box office. Two PetaPixel writers went to see it at IMAX and 4DX to see which one was better.

Image credits: Warner Bros. Entertainment