To finish fifth and still stand on the Formula One podium made for an unusual end to George Russell’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
On the other side of the rostrum was Charles Leclerc, the Ferrari driver who had already been on the podium on Sunday evening after recovering from 19th on the grid to finish third behind Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz.
In between Russell and Leclerc in his white and black race suit was Sonny Hayes, the veteran racer from APXGP.
Hayes is the fictional character played by Brad Pitt in “F1,” the movie produced by Warner Bros. and Apple that has embedded itself within the F1 world for the past two seasons. APXGP, Pitt’s fictional team owned by Javier Bardem’s character, has received a full garage setup at races and lined its Mercedes-designed cars up on the starting grid, so committed has the sport been to making this the most realistic racing film ever.
On Sunday after the race in Abu Dhabi, a second podium ceremony was staged to capture some scenes, all in front of fans who had been told to stay in their seats after the race for a chance to be caught in the movie.
The F1 season has been run and won, but perhaps no one was happier to be trackside for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix than Brad Pitt.
The Hollywood star has been a fixture of the F1 paddock for the last 18 months since he took the F1 world by surprise by popping up with his own garage at last year’s British Grand Prix.
Pitt and his co-star Damon Idris were the talk of Silverstone that weekend and have been at several race weekends this year filming their racing movie, simply titled F1.
It’s a collaboration between F1 and Apple TV, with the plot centred around a former driver who comes out of retirement to help mentor a younger driver and try win a championship.
David Fincher fans will get a chance to see one of his best in the coming months. His 1995 noir thriller, Se7en, is set to hit IMAX in January. Fincher’s early collaboration with Brad Pitt features the actor as David Mills, a cop new to a crime-ridden city under a perpetually overcast sky. Paired up with a jaded veteran detective, William Somerset (Morgan Freeman), the two have to stop the brutal killings of a serial killer inspired by the Seven Deadly Sins. Pitt would later star in Fincher’s cult classic film, Fight Club, only a few years later, but Se7en was one of his first critical successes and has gone on to be remembered in its own right. While the story is undoubtedly bleak, it was a masterclass in the detective genre, marking Fincher as a filmmaker to watch out for.
The four-part series — from Graham and his regular collaborators Jack Thorne Philip Barantini — is notable for each episode being shot in one continuous take as the action unfolds in real time. It’s due to launch on Netflix next year and counts Brad Pitt among its exec producers.
Adolescence will mark a first role for Owen Cooper, who plays a 13-year-old teenage boy who is arrested for the murder of a girl at his school. Graham (Boiling Point) plays his father and ‘appropriate’ adult, while Walters (Top Boy) plays a detective inspector and Soherty (The Crown) a clinical psychologist assigned to the case.
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