Thirty-five years ago, uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer unleashed the roar and speed of NASCAR on cinema screens. Days of Thunder was a racing smash, but critics were quick to notice its similarities to his recent hit Top Gun.

Now, relatively fresh from saving cinema with Top Gun: Maverick, F1: The Movie confirms we are in a new era of Bruckheimer. And man, do these high-octane callbacks, updates and yes, reruns, of old petrol blockbusters scratch an itch.

To the world, Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) is a washed-up racing driver, 30 years after his F1 fame came to a shattering halt in a horrific crash. When his old teammate Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) approaches him as a last chance to save his team APXGP, the reckless star of yesteryear could be the answer. 

Of course, it isn’t plain racing when Hayes has disgruntled rookie driver Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) to worry about, as well as the team’s technical director (Kerry Condon) questioning just why he wants to return to the most high-profile racing tracks in the world. With nine races to go to save the team from being sold from under Ruben, and everyone losing their jobs, Hayes has to work his magic to bring everyone together and every trick on and off the track to gain the minuscule advantage they need. It just takes one win.

F1, subtitled a little blatantly, The Movie, is exactly what most of its audience would expect. It has the underdog, the resentment, a dash of underhanded villainy, and a tonne of high-stakes action all fed through a rollercoaster structure across its generous 156-minute runtime.

But it’s all about the way it does it. Top Gun: Maverick was a slick update. It lost the simmering undercurrents and ’80s haze of Top Gun, but replaced it with clear and heavy strums of emotional power chords. It was a masterclass in pruning down plot, providing compelling motivation and keeping everyone’s focus on character clashes and superfast tech. Bruckheimer knows a good thing when he sees it. And picking up director Joseph Kosinski and dropping him into the ‘world’s most glamorous sport’ to repeat the trick was the right move.

The result is an absolute blast. Yes, it’s formulaic, but F1 has some tricks that keep things interesting. Under the sport’s super-fast carbon fibre, ultra-engineered cars, is a vast business of politics-ravaged boards, massive cheques, and teams of expertise tuning and fine-tuning. F1 fans may all take to different or all aspects of a sport that walks the line between clinical precision and hair-raising danger, but there’s far too much to combine satisfyingly on-screen. 

So, Kosinski picks elements with surgical precision to hint at the giant machine and streamline the plot. It works perfectly – you don’t miss the lack of qualifying, while the use of overlays, track progression, leaderboards and positions sum up the sport’s emphasis on statistics. This extends to cameos – Hayes and Pearce compete in a believable F1 season, with flashes of drivers like Max Verstappen and (also a producer) Lewis Hamilton on and off track. There are very few – and no awkward – elbowed chats, but constant nods that sell this as a breathing, authentic experience. 

Tackling the complex sport actually helps obscure the formula. Hayes doesn’t arrive in a team that immediately benefits from his driving prowess. Surprisingly, it’s more a mix of cheating, pushing, and sneaking the team into a position where it might survive.

Introduced via an old-fashioned opening scene where Hayes engineers a roaring, tactile win in Daytona, he may be a winner in waiting, but Hayes isn’t Pitt at his most charismatic. 90s wunderkind Hayes has plenty for Pitt to sink his teeth into (with consummate ease), but the result isn’t a creation that will last the ages, apart from, perhaps, his often-heard chuckle. Hayes talks, sometimes too much, but more often he’s all balancing a repressed history and letting the action talk. There’s a hollowness behind the eyes, handing us the sense of a life torn away, and leaving us grasping at what his motivation really might be. 

The SD flashbacks to Haye’s F1 prime and his horrendous accident – a neat way to use de-ageing tech – are wisely rationed. However, the incident in Las Vegas, which sets up the third act by revealing the injuries Hayes has lived with, comes a bit late, and its eruption feels rushed and unnecessary in the tense and crucial final race in Abu Dhabi.

That choice, which just needed a bit of reworking, is easy to forgive in the overall success. See also the villain who can be seen from the pit stop and stylistic choices that border on parody – Hayes’ bucolic cottage near Silverstone and the canal-side pubs are jaw-droppers. 

But as good as the neat little touches that make a whole team feel like an honest and empathetic unit are – the team principal with the young family clearly on the wane, the prayer gesture Joshua uses to control his temper – the star turn has to be on the track. 

It doesn’t disappoint. It’s a relentless display, but it never feels repetitive, aided by the nine unique venues and trackful of tricks. There were no doubt thousands of hours of racing to pare down, as Kosinski using tools 180 spins in the cockpit and freely breaks the 180 degree rule to keep the action dazzling while Hans Zimmer’s pounding and enjoyably retro soundtrack backs it up (although introducing us to Hayes with Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love more than sets the scene). 

F1 delivers what people really paid for, but it’s just one slick part of this slick machine all about slick machines.