The reigning constructors\u2019 champion hinted at the test on social media, sharing an image of driver overalls carrying Pitt\u2019s initials, with the caption \u201cit\u2019s a Sonny day in Austin”.<\/p>\n
The Hollywood heavyweight, who stars as fictional ex-racer Sonny Hayes in the film, travelled to Texas after the film\u2019s glitzy New York City premiere on Monday night.<\/p>\n
McLaren racer Lando Norris<\/a> also flew to the United States Grand Prix venue after the star-studded event in the Big Apple, while Oscar Piastri<\/a> skipped the movie premiere altogether and headed straight to the Lone Star State for the TPC test.<\/p>\n Pitt is believed to have taken to the track in the McLaren MCL60, the team\u2019s 2023 car, after Norris showed him the ropes.<\/p>\n Lando Norris, McLaren MCL60<\/p>\n Photo by: Glenn Dunbar \/ Motorsport Images<\/p>\n It\u2019s curious that his first F1 outing took place with McLaren rather than Mercedes<\/a>, as the Silver Arrows was the team most heavily involved in the film\u2019s production. In the movie, Pitt and his co-star, Damson Idris, drive F2 cars that were modified by the German outfit.<\/p>\n Mercedes was heavily involved in all aspects of the film \u2013 by way of co-producer Lewis Hamilton<\/a> \u2013 with multiple staff members earning off-screen credits, and Toto Wolff making an on-screen appearance.\u00a0<\/p>\n The fictional APX GP car even carries a swath of Mercedes\u2019 real-life sponsors, including IWC and Tommy Hilfiger (though the clothing brand has since been replaced by Adidas as a Mercedes sponsor).<\/p>\n Of course, Hamilton headed to Ferrari<\/a> in the midst of the movie\u2019s production, but it\u2019s clear Pitt has still maintained a strong relationship with the likes of Wolff and George Russell<\/a>.<\/p>\n Back in 2023, before cameras had even started rolling at the British Grand Prix, the Mercedes boss revealed he had been involved \u201cearly on\u201d and even sent Pitt to driving school in France to work his way up from Formula 4 machinery.<\/p>\n \u201cWe also tried to be helpful with the garages and the pitwall, all of it, and give them the designs so they could be as realistic as possible,\u201d Wolff said of the team’s involvement in helping get APX GP get race-ready.<\/p>\n “I spoke to the director [Joe Kosinski] a few weeks ago and said, ‘where are you?’ expecting him to tell me he’s in Hollywood \u2013 but he said ‘I’m in my apartment in Brackley,’ so it’s not all great being a movie director,\u201d Wolff joked.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Read Also:<\/p>\n In this article<\/p>\n Emily Selleck\n<\/p>\n Formula 1\n<\/p>\n McLaren\n<\/p>\n Be the first to know and subscribe for real-time news email updates on these topics<\/p>\n Subscribe to news alerts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brad Pitt may play a Formula 1 driver in his upcoming summer blockbuster, but he\u2019s never got behind…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,707,4200,1710,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-200549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-mclaren","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114717142849466954","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Lando](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/lando-norris-mclaren-mcl60-1.jpg\")
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