Formula 1
Craig Dolby watched in his mirrors as actor Damson Idris spun, navigating the triple righthander at Circuit of the Americas. The feeling of “No, no, no, no” sank in.
The two had been practising in Austin for ‘F1: The Movie,’ and Dolby, a stunt driver and the additional sequence choreographer, was leading the way around the circuit. Confidence was increasing, and Idris reduced the gap. “I thought, ‘I know what you’re going to try and do’,” Dolby tells The Athletic. “He came through there and he tried to close in. But as he closed in, he got in my wash and lost the grip.”
Idris nailed a 360-degree spin safely. But it goes to show the levels to which Idris and co-star Brad Pitt pushed in the cockpit of the Formula Two cars used for filming the latest Joseph Kosinski and Jerry Bruckheimer production.
While reviews across the motorsport and entertainment industries weigh the authenticity of different scenes, the filming of the racing moments wasn’t just a product of solid acting from Pitt or Idris. They weren’t being towed on rigs or driving at half-speed. They pushed the limits in real cars, and their body language and reactions became a natural outcome of moving at up to 200 mph.
