Two Stories That Deserve a Movie Following F1’s Oscar Success

Brad Pitt’s F1 cleared $631 million worldwide, won over the Academy, and dragged a generation of casual viewers into our obsessive, sun-scorched, politics-drenched circus. As if the bucketload of cash at the box office wasn’t enough, the most financially successful sports movie ever made then went and scooped the Best Sound award at the recent Oscars. Good. Now Hollywood knows what we’ve known since Senna drove into Tamburello at 190mph. No screenwriter alive can outwrite this sport. 

As we head deeper into 2026, a new story is being written, one of GOATs returning to reclaim their thrones. On the one hand, you have Mercedes, one of F1’s most successful ever teams, leading the grid once again. On the other, you have their former talisman Lewis Hamilton, now at Ferrari and aiming to return to former glories at the ripe old age of 41 and usurp the team with which he had so much success in the process. 

Two rounds into the 2026 season, online betting sites have a clear favorite in mind. That, of course, is the early championship leader George Russell, who the bookies list as the clear 6/100 frontrunner to win the title, with teammate Kimi Antonelli out at 11/4 and the veteran Hamilton at 14/1. But before backing Russell at such a short price, it is worth running those odds through an expected value calculator first. The tool compares the implied probability baked into his price against your own estimate of his chances of holding on over a full 24-race season, flagging whether the bookmakers have left value on the table or priced him with ruthless accuracy. 

Hamilton hunting down the Silver Arrows is a movie within itself, but which other F1 storylines from over the years could be turned into a true story Brad Pitt epic? Let’s take a look. 

Verstappen vs Hamilton 

Opening scene: Silverstone, lap one, turn nine. The moment Max Verstappen’s Red Bull was launched into a tyre wall at 150mph and 51G after Lewis Hamilton threw his Mercedes up the inside in an ill-fated attempt to inherit the race lead and kickstart his bid for a record-breaking eighth world championship. The young Dutchman was rushed to the hospital while his all-time great adversary ate a ten-second penalty before overtaking Charles Leclerc with a handful of laps remaining to claim the win and ignite a championship battle for the ages. 

The season had been a knife fight since Bahrain — lead changes, contact, two fanbases radicalizing in real time. Old Formula One money versus the crypto-bro NFT crowd who’d discovered the sport via Netflix and suddenly had opinions about steward decisions. The seven-time king against the Netherlands’ greatest sports star since Johann Cruyff. Legacy versus destiny. 

Monza escalated everything. Verstappen’s Red Bull rode over the Mercedes Halo; titanium forged specifically to prevent this exact scenario and the life-threatening disaster it could bring, sparks flying like a Michael Bay director’s wet dream. A three-place grid penalty. And a question: what do you do with a rivalry so violent that the safety equipment becomes the story? 

It all comes down to Abu Dhabi. Two drivers are level on points heading into the decider. Hamilton claims the lead in the first corner and never relinquishes it, leading well past lap 50 of 58 and extending the gap to over ten seconds. Then, disaster, Nicholas Latifi hits the wall, safety car deployed, door open for a Verstappen miracle. Cue shenanigans. 

Verstappen pits for fresh softs, team principal Christian Horner gets on race director Michael Masi’s case. The now disgraced race director crumbles, making an unprecedented decision that allowed just five cars to be unlapped and providing the world with one racing lap to decide the championship. Only Verstappen’s tyres were 30 laps fresher and three seconds a lap faster. He sweeps through, claims his first crown, Hamilton’s left in tears, and the world can’t believe what it’s just witnessed. Cast it now. 

The Boy Who Would Become King 

Picture Ron Dennis watching the timing screens in Shanghai 2007. His golden boy — 22 years old, 16 races into his Formula One career, leading the drivers’ championship — sitting stationary in the pit lane exit, front-right tyre ground to canvas, beached in gravel, watching his championship aspirations fade to black in real time. McLaren’s pitwall froze. Everyone froze. The working theory for the delayed call-in varies depending on which engineer you corner at which post-race dinner. 

Kimi Räikkönen takes 2007 by a single point after further issues in the Brazilian finale plummets Hamilton to the back of the grid, the young Brit’s dream of becoming the youngest champion and first rookie in history to claim the title dies after back-to-back catastrophes. 

Then, in 2008, the sport gets cruel again, operatically so. Hamilton and Felipe Massa battle it out all year long, heading into the decider in Brazil, Massa’s home turf. The hometown hero wins the race, and for 30 seconds, he’s the world champion. His family is already crying with joy in the Ferrari garage. Then, a pit crew member screams at them and tells them to look at the TV screen. 

Hamilton needs P5 to claim the title, but he’s in P6 halfway round the final lap. Then, as he approaches the final corner, he finds the Toyota of Timo Glock, stuck on dry tyres in the middle of a monsoon. The German understeers wide, Hamilton sneaks up the inside, 100,000 Brazilian hearts break in the grandstand as the young Brit somehow, some way, finds a way to claim the biggest prize in the game. 

How did 23-year-old Lewis Hamilton not break? How did he never give up despite all hope seeming lost? Ask him in the closing scene of the movie. 

Written by

Jack Renn

Jack Renn is an editor at F1 Chronicle and a veteran motorsport journalist with 25 years of experience covering Formula 1 and international motorsport. A member of the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS), the global body representing accredited sports journalists, Jack has spent his career reporting from paddocks and press rooms across the F1 calendar. His work spans race analysis, technical insight, and in-depth features, giving readers authoritative coverage grounded in decades of firsthand experience at the highest level of the sport.

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