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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsF1 The Movie is fictional, but Sonny Hayes’s crash history has a confirmed real-world source: Martin Donnelly’s 1990 accident at Jerez. The film’s later crash involving rookie Joshua Pearce is a composite inspired by Alex Peroni’s airborne Formula 3 wreck at Monza and Romain Grosjean’s 2020 Bahrain fireball. Its deliberate-crash strategy also echoes Formula 1’s 2008 Singapore scandal, Crashgate.
F1 The Movie is not a true story or a biography of one driver. It is a fictional sports drama built from several real Formula 1 events. The clearest confirmed connection is Sonny Hayes’s past: Brad Pitt said the character was based on Northern Irish driver Martin Donnelly’s devastating 1990 crash at Jerez.
The film’s spectacular rookie crash involving Joshua Pearce combines different real-world reference points: Alex Peroni’s airborne Formula 3 accident at Monza and Romain Grosjean’s fireball crash at the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix. Elsewhere, the movie’s deliberate-crash race strategy echoes Formula 1’s 2008 Singapore scandal, known as Crashgate.
The real events behind F1 The Movie at a glance
| Film element | Real-world source | How close is the connection? |
|---|---|---|
| Sonny Hayes’s career-ending crash and return | Martin Donnelly’s 1990 Spanish Grand Prix practice crash at Jerez | Confirmed direct inspiration |
| Joshua Pearce’s airborne crash | Alex Peroni’s 2019 F3 crash at Monza’s Parabolica | Strong visual match, identified from Kosinski’s description |
| The fireball and escape | Romain Grosjean’s 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix crash | Explicitly cited by director Joseph Kosinski |
| Crash effects and vehicle destruction | Dario Franchitti’s IndyCar wrecks, along with other real incidents | VFX reference material, not a confirmed one-to-one recreation |
| The intentional-crash strategy | The 2008 Singapore Grand Prix Crashgate scandal | Thematic and plot inspiration, not a retelling |
Martin Donnelly’s 1990 Jerez crash inspired Sonny Hayes
The most important real event in the film is Martin Donnelly’s accident during practice for the 1990 Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez. Donnelly was a promising Lotus driver from Northern Ireland. At an estimated 160 mph, his Lotus 102 crashed into a barrier. The impact threw him from the car, leaving him motionless on the circuit.
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Donnelly survived, but the accident ended his Formula 1 career. His injuries included nerve damage and a difference in leg length. He later attempted to return, including a test with Jordan at Silverstone in February 1993, but eventually abandoned his bid to get back onto the F1 grid. The BBC’s account of Donnelly’s crash and attempted comeback explains why the film’s premise is emotionally recognizable while still being fictional.
The connection is not merely a fan theory. Brad Pitt explicitly identified Donnelly as the driver who inspired Sonny. In an interview published by Formula1.com, Pitt said, “We based Sonny’s past on Martin Donnelly’s crash.” Donnelly provided footage to the production and advised the filmmakers, helping them build the character’s history and the atmosphere around the accident. Formula1.com’s interview with Pitt and Donnelly is the clearest confirmation of the link.
How Donnelly’s experience appears in the film
The movie borrows more than the broad idea of a driver surviving a catastrophic wreck. Donnelly told the BBC that he advised on the period garage environment and that Pitt reproduced one of his superstitions: entering the car from the left side and putting his left leg in first.
The production initially considered another famous accident as a possible foundation for Sonny’s backstory. Lewis Hamilton contacted Donnelly about using his incident, and Donnelly said that Gerhard Berger’s fiery 1989 crash at Imola had also been considered before Hamilton showed director Joseph Kosinski Donnelly’s footage.
That distinction matters. Sonny Hayes is not Martin Donnelly under another name. Donnelly’s crash supplied the foundation for Sonny’s past, but Sonny’s personality, team relationships, fictional APXGP career, retirement, and dramatic return to the F1 grid were created for the movie. Donnelly survived and tried to return to racing; he did not experience the Hollywood-style comeback depicted in the film.
Joshua Pearce’s crash combines Alex Peroni and Romain Grosjean
The film’s other major crash belongs to rookie Joshua Pearce. It is not a reconstruction of Donnelly’s accident. Director Joseph Kosinski described the sequence as drawing on two separate real crashes: a Formula 3 car launched by a sausage kerb at Monza and Romain Grosjean’s fiery Bahrain accident.
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The airborne car: Alex Peroni at Monza
Kosinski told British GQ that one reference was a Formula 3 crash from roughly a decade earlier in which a car hit a sausage kerb at Monza’s Parabolica. A sausage kerb is a raised, usually brightly painted track-limit device designed to discourage drivers from running beyond the circuit. Striking one at speed can launch a car rather than simply unsettle it.
The description is a strong match for Alex Peroni’s September 7, 2019 F3 accident. Peroni’s Campos car hit the kerbing at the outside of the Parabolica, became airborne, landed on the barriers, and struck the catch fencing. He walked away from the crash but was diagnosed with a broken vertebra. Formula1.com’s report on Peroni’s Monza crash documents the track feature and the consequences.
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Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Kosinski did not name Peroni in the British GQ interview, so it is more accurate to call Peroni’s accident an apparent or strong match to the director’s description rather than claim that Kosinski directly identified it. The film also enlarges the event for dramatic effect. Pearce’s car follows a more elaborate trajectory and the surrounding race circumstances are fictional.
The fireball: Romain Grosjean in Bahrain
The second major ingredient is Romain Grosjean’s opening-lap crash at the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix. Grosjean’s Haas struck a barrier, split apart, and burst into flames. He escaped the wreckage after a frightening delay and suffered burns to his hands. Formula1.com’s report on the Bahrain accident records the impact and Grosjean’s escape.
Kosinski specifically cited Grosjean’s crash as an influence on Pearce’s sequence. The resemblance is clearest in the combination of a violent barrier impact, a large fireball, a driver apparently trapped inside the wreckage, and the eventual survival of the driver. The film also emphasizes the safety technology and equipment that make survival possible in a modern single-seater.
But Pearce’s crash is a composite, not a shot-for-shot recreation. Its airborne dynamics point toward the Peroni reference, while its fire and survival imagery point toward Grosjean. The movie joins those elements with invented characters, cars, tactics, and consequences.
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What Dario Franchitti contributed to the crash effects
The real-racing references did not stop with the incidents that Kosinski discussed publicly. Framestore, the visual-effects company that worked on F1 The Movie, says its crash work also drew on Dario Franchitti’s IndyCar wrecks, as well as Alex Peroni’s F3 accident.
This is best understood as production reference rather than evidence that one specific Franchitti crash was recreated in the finished movie. Framestore does not identify a single Franchitti incident as the exact model for a particular shot, so it would be inaccurate to say that the film definitively reproduces Franchitti’s 2013 Houston crash.
Instead, the VFX team used footage and telemetry from real accidents to make the digital destruction behave convincingly. The reference material informed simulations of carbon-fibre failure, flying debris, gravel, fire-suppression foam, and tyres breaking apart. Framestore describes a process that combined live-action photography, computer-generated cars, telemetry-driven simulations, and reconstructed track environments. Framestore’s official case study for F1 The Movie explains why the crashes can feel more documentary-like than conventional action-movie wrecks.
The film’s deliberate crash echoes 2008 Crashgate
A different real scandal appears in the movie’s race strategy. The fictional team uses an intentional crash to create a neutralisation or disruption and change the competitive situation. That premise echoes the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix scandal, which became known as Crashgate.
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At the real Singapore race, Renault driver Nelson Piquet Jr. crashed on lap 13. The resulting safety-car period changed the strategic picture and helped his teammate Fernando Alonso recover from a poor qualifying position to win the race. Later evidence indicated that Renault leaders Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds had ordered Piquet to cause the crash for Alonso’s benefit. Renault subsequently admitted that it had conspired to cause a deliberate accident. Formula1.com’s retrospective on the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix outlines the scandal and its consequences.
Brad Pitt has also described real Formula 1 stories as influences on the film’s plot, and Crashgate has been reported as one of those references. The report discussing the movie’s Crashgate connection should be read as evidence of a plot influence, not as proof that the film recreates the actual Singapore race.
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The movie changes the details, motivations, team structure, and outcome. The important similarity is the moral and tactical idea: a driver or team deliberately creates danger to manipulate the race. In the real scandal, that became a major sporting and governance controversy. In the film, it functions as part of the fictional APXGP story.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How much of the racing in the film is real?
The events behind the crashes are real, but APXGP, Sonny Hayes, and Joshua Pearce are fictional. The production placed that fictional team inside genuine Formula 1 environments, which is why the movie can look like a hybrid of a racing documentary and a traditional sports drama.
Pitt and Damson Idris drove modified race cars at real F1 venues and race weekends, including Silverstone, Las Vegas, and Abu Dhabi, during the 2023 and 2024 seasons. The cars were not current Formula 1 machines. The production began with real Dallara Formula 2 chassis, bought six of them, extended their wheelbases by 400 millimetres, and fitted custom bodywork developed with Mercedes engineers. The result was designed to look like an F1 car without being confused with a real team’s 2023 or 2024 chassis. Formula1.com’s production explainer describes how the APXGP cars were built and filmed.
Framestore’s work added another layer of illusion. Some shots use live-action footage captured around genuine F1 events, while other shots replace cars digitally, add computer-generated APXGP vehicles, or reconstruct parts of the environment. That makes it possible for the fictional team to appear among real drivers and teams without pretending that APXGP actually competed.
Kosinski said the production generally respected the real finishing order of the races it filmed. There is, however, a major fictional exception: in the film’s version of the 2023 Abu Dhabi race, Sonny takes the victory that in reality belongs to Max Verstappen. This is why a scene can contain authentic track surroundings, real race-weekend footage, and recognizable Formula 1 competitors while still belonging to an invented championship narrative.
Confirmed inspiration versus visual comparison
The evidence supports three different levels of connection, and keeping them separate prevents the film from being mislabeled as a true story.
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- Confirmed direct inspiration: Martin Donnelly’s 1990 Jerez crash is the basis for Sonny Hayes’s past. Pitt said so, and Donnelly advised the production.
- Explicit director reference: Kosinski said Pearce’s crash drew from a Monza sausage-kerb accident and Grosjean’s 2020 Bahrain fireball.
- Strong identification from matching details: The Monza description closely matches Alex Peroni’s 2019 F3 crash, although Kosinski did not name Peroni in the cited interview.
- Technical reference: Framestore used Dario Franchitti’s IndyCar wrecks and other real incidents to help model the physics and appearance of destruction. That does not identify one exact Franchitti crash as the film’s source.
- Thematic plot echo: The intentional-crash strategy resembles the 2008 Singapore Crashgate scandal, but the movie does not retell that race.
Where to watch the crash scenes again
The bottom line
F1 The Movie borrows its emotional core from Martin Donnelly, its most spectacular crash from a blend of Alex Peroni and Romain Grosjean, its destruction techniques from a wider pool of motorsport footage including Dario Franchitti’s wrecks, and its sabotage plot from Crashgate. None of that makes Sonny Hayes a real driver or APXGP a real team.
The film’s unusual realism comes from combining those historical references with real circuits, real race-weekend footage, modified cars, and extensive VFX. It is fictional storytelling assembled on top of authentic Formula 1 history—not a dramatized account of one event.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is F1 The Movie based on a true story?
No. F1 The Movie is a fictional sports drama, not a true story or biography. Sonny Hayes’s backstory was based on Martin Donnelly’s 1990 crash, but Sonny, APXGP, Joshua Pearce, and the comeback plot are invented.
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What real crash inspired Sonny Hayes?
Martin Donnelly’s crash during practice for the 1990 Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez is the confirmed inspiration for Sonny Hayes’s past. Donnelly survived, advised the production, and supplied footage, but his real career did not include Sonny’s fictional return to the F1 grid.
Was Joshua Pearce’s crash a real Formula 1 accident?
It is a composite. The airborne car closely matches Alex Peroni’s 2019 Formula 3 crash at Monza’s Parabolica, while the fireball and escape draw from Romain Grosjean’s 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix accident. The film exaggerates and combines both events.
What is Crashgate, and how does it relate to the movie?
The movie echoes the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix scandal known as Crashgate. Nelson Piquet Jr.’s deliberate crash brought out the safety car and helped Fernando Alonso win, but the film does not recreate that race or its exact participants.
The Bottom Line
F1 The Movie is fictional, but its key set pieces have real roots: Martin Donnelly’s 1990 Jerez crash inspired Sonny Hayes’s backstory; Alex Peroni’s Monza accident and Romain Grosjean’s Bahrain fireball shaped Joshua Pearce’s crash; and the film’s intentional-crash strategy echoes 2008’s Crashgate scandal.
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