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It May Be F1 The Movie, But IMSA Guest Stars
Appearance of IMSA and the 2024 Rolex 24 At Daytona Kickstarts Summer Blockbuster - By Tony DiZinno
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – Sports car racing is having a moment of late; it’s being spotlighted on screens of all sizes across the country and across the world. There’s a litany of streaming series, docuseri...
Several media members were among those granted a special opportunity to see a Porsche-hosted advance screening of the film prior to the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen weekend at The Glen Theatre in downtown Watkins Glen.
Chances are you know the basic plot for the Joseph Kosinski-directed, Jerry Bruckheimer-produced film distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures and Apple Original Films that largely revolves around the world of Formula 1, with significant consulting influence from seven-time F1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton.
A former driver, played by Hollywood acting icon Brad Pitt, is called back to racing after a long hiatus to mentor a young up-and-coming teammate in a fictional, new F1 team (APXGP) that serves as the 11th team on that series’ 10-team grid.
But before we see the F1 world in all its glory, Pitt’s character Sonny Hayes kicks off his racing comeback at the Rolex 24 At Daytona, as part of the fictional “Chip Hart Racing” entry that adorned the actual No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R at the 2024 edition of the blue riband endurance classic that kicked off the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season.
The film crew’s – and Pitt’s – presence at the 2024 24-hour race and the preceding week’s Roar Before The Rolex 24 where a majority of the footage was captured, was a big part of that year’s proceedings, with a mix of actual race scenes taken by the No. 120 Porsche being in the big show itself and specialized, specific shot-for-screens done in off-hours to provide enough material to the filmmakers. The Wright team dedicated additional hours of their time to help produce the effort.
What follows is a brief but mighty tour de force of IMSA at its finest, with the No. 120 Wright/Chip Hart Porsche dueling with the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 among others during the race.
Turner Motorsport, too, is no rookie to the silver screen. Its IMSA cars were featured prominently in 2019’s The Art of Racing in the Rain, adapted from the book of the same name, with filming taking place the previous year at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.
An NBC-liveried helicopter flies onto the track over Daytona International Speedway’s Le Mans Chicane – the artist formerly and still colloquially known as the Bus Stop – in a made-for-Hollywood moment capturing the battle through the final sequence of corners before the pair head back onto Daytona’s oval Turns 3 and 4 back onto the front straight.
Hayes’ Porsche wins, of course, which explains the additional scene shot in Rolex 24 podium proceedings as the fake/real No. 120 Porsche rolled into victory lane. His fictional co-drivers appear in real driver form with longtime Porsche factory ace Patrick Long in the Daytona podium shot.
In case you were wondering, the No. 120 Porsche of Elliott Skeer, Adam Adelson, Jan Heylen and Fred Makowiecki finished seventh in Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) during that year’s Rolex 24 At Daytona. Adelson and Skeer visited Daytona’s victory lane on merit in 2025; Skeer winning the Rolex 24 Motul Pole Award in GTD, and Adelson sweeping the first two IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge Grand Touring Daytona X (GTDX) class races. And to coincide with the movie’s release, the team brought the movie livery back for The Glen this past weekend.
“I’m super excited to be repping the Chip Hart livery a year and a half since we participated in the movie filming at Daytona,” Adelson said heading into the weekend. “I’ll miss our stunning green and yellow livery, but I’m eager to be able to represent what is shaping up to be such an incredible and highly anticipated film.”
Even though it’s the movie plot line, the concept of a former driver coming back to race in sports car racing is not overly far-fetched. It’s a tale as old as time; many drivers have life or business commitments that take them away from the track for several years before they return. Some return for love of the game, to scratch an itch, to quench the thirst of unfinished business or to drive alongside their coach, who is often a younger pro driver.
The movie has its highlights along with its “Hollywood moments” as any script does. It also has some fun Easter eggs built in for the hardcore motorsports fan while balancing the needs to cater to the wider audience. Alas, the bulk of the run time is devoted to the F1 world itself, so the IMSA presence is limited to the opening few-minute cameo before the opening title cards.
But the point of the movie isn’t to be entirely, technically true-to-life despite what is a very astute technical production that showcases the best of both F1 and IMSA’s worlds. And to be fair, the cinematography is spectacular – the visuals, audio and music coincide to provide a simply epic visceral sensory overload.
The primary point is to drive a level of awareness and engagement for the continuously burgeoning motorsport audience that has seemed to grow by leaps and bounds in the last five-plus years, particularly since F1’s own Netflix docuseries, “Drive to Survive,” has been referenced regularly as a major growth driver of that audience.
And for IMSA, being featured at the start of a major motorsports movie that will no doubt do well at the box office this summer, can only be a good thing for all involved.
https://www.imsa.com/news/2025/06/27/it-may-be-f1-...
#IMSA #f1 #Daytona #race2real #news
#Blogs
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WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – Sports car racing is having a moment of late; it’s being spotlighted on screens of all sizes across the country and across the world. There’s a litany of streaming series, docuseri...
Appearance of IMSA and the 2024 Rolex 24 At Daytona Kickstarts Summer Blockbuster - By Tony DiZinno
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – Sports car racing is having a moment of late; it’s being spotlighted on screens of all sizes across the country and across the world. There’s a litany of streaming series, docuseries and a couple sports car-specific silver screen films that have premiered within the past few years. That includes a few award winners in the IMSA space.
However, it’s F1® The Movie that – even if only briefly – showcases IMSA in a prominent guest-starring role to open proceedings to the two-and-a-half-hour summer 2025 blockbuster.
Several media members were among those granted a special opportunity to see a Porsche-hosted advance screening of the film prior to the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen weekend at The Glen Theatre in downtown Watkins Glen.
Chances are you know the basic plot for the Joseph Kosinski-directed, Jerry Bruckheimer-produced film distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures and Apple Original Films that largely revolves around the world of Formula 1, with significant consulting influence from seven-time F1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton.
A former driver, played by Hollywood acting icon Brad Pitt, is called back to racing after a long hiatus to mentor a young up-and-coming teammate in a fictional, new F1 team (APXGP) that serves as the 11th team on that series’ 10-team grid.
But before we see the F1 world in all its glory, Pitt’s character Sonny Hayes kicks off his racing comeback at the Rolex 24 At Daytona, as part of the fictional “Chip Hart Racing” entry that adorned the actual No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R at the 2024 edition of the blue riband endurance classic that kicked off the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season.
The film crew’s – and Pitt’s – presence at the 2024 24-hour race and the preceding week’s Roar Before The Rolex 24 where a majority of the footage was captured, was a big part of that year’s proceedings, with a mix of actual race scenes taken by the No. 120 Porsche being in the big show itself and specialized, specific shot-for-screens done in off-hours to provide enough material to the filmmakers. The Wright team dedicated additional hours of their time to help produce the effort.
What follows is a brief but mighty tour de force of IMSA at its finest, with the No. 120 Wright/Chip Hart Porsche dueling with the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 among others during the race.
Turner Motorsport, too, is no rookie to the silver screen. Its IMSA cars were featured prominently in 2019’s The Art of Racing in the Rain, adapted from the book of the same name, with filming taking place the previous year at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.
An NBC-liveried helicopter flies onto the track over Daytona International Speedway’s Le Mans Chicane – the artist formerly and still colloquially known as the Bus Stop – in a made-for-Hollywood moment capturing the battle through the final sequence of corners before the pair head back onto Daytona’s oval Turns 3 and 4 back onto the front straight.
Hayes’ Porsche wins, of course, which explains the additional scene shot in Rolex 24 podium proceedings as the fake/real No. 120 Porsche rolled into victory lane. His fictional co-drivers appear in real driver form with longtime Porsche factory ace Patrick Long in the Daytona podium shot.
In case you were wondering, the No. 120 Porsche of Elliott Skeer, Adam Adelson, Jan Heylen and Fred Makowiecki finished seventh in Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) during that year’s Rolex 24 At Daytona. Adelson and Skeer visited Daytona’s victory lane on merit in 2025; Skeer winning the Rolex 24 Motul Pole Award in GTD, and Adelson sweeping the first two IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge Grand Touring Daytona X (GTDX) class races. And to coincide with the movie’s release, the team brought the movie livery back for The Glen this past weekend.
“I’m super excited to be repping the Chip Hart livery a year and a half since we participated in the movie filming at Daytona,” Adelson said heading into the weekend. “I’ll miss our stunning green and yellow livery, but I’m eager to be able to represent what is shaping up to be such an incredible and highly anticipated film.”
Even though it’s the movie plot line, the concept of a former driver coming back to race in sports car racing is not overly far-fetched. It’s a tale as old as time; many drivers have life or business commitments that take them away from the track for several years before they return. Some return for love of the game, to scratch an itch, to quench the thirst of unfinished business or to drive alongside their coach, who is often a younger pro driver.
The movie has its highlights along with its “Hollywood moments” as any script does. It also has some fun Easter eggs built in for the hardcore motorsports fan while balancing the needs to cater to the wider audience. Alas, the bulk of the run time is devoted to the F1 world itself, so the IMSA presence is limited to the opening few-minute cameo before the opening title cards.
But the point of the movie isn’t to be entirely, technically true-to-life despite what is a very astute technical production that showcases the best of both F1 and IMSA’s worlds. And to be fair, the cinematography is spectacular – the visuals, audio and music coincide to provide a simply epic visceral sensory overload.
The primary point is to drive a level of awareness and engagement for the continuously burgeoning motorsport audience that has seemed to grow by leaps and bounds in the last five-plus years, particularly since F1’s own Netflix docuseries, “Drive to Survive,” has been referenced regularly as a major growth driver of that audience.
And for IMSA, being featured at the start of a major motorsports movie that will no doubt do well at the box office this summer, can only be a good thing for all involved.
https://www.imsa.com/news/2025/06/27/it-may-be-f1-...
#IMSA #f1 #Daytona #race2real #news
#Blogs
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