The production was finally about to start. Before it did, the team moved up to Willow Springs, and that was where Lucas met the people from the F1 world who had actually put their hands on this film.
First was the British driver, Lewis Hamilton. He hadn't come to lend his face to a poster and leave. He'd signed on as a key producer, there to run the technical side and drag the whole thing as close to real as it would go: how a driver braked, when he shifted, the line through a corner, the way a car moved when it was genuinely being raced rather than pretending to be.
He had a strong opinion on every piece of it, and he wanted the same thing from the film that he wanted from a race weekend. The real article, not a Hollywood imitation of it.
Beside him stood a heavier name still: Toto Wolff, team principal at Mercedes. He'd flown in because the project thrilled him, the cast most of all. A name as big as Lucas's in the same car as a veteran like Brad Pitt was not the kind of thing that came along twice, and Wolff had wanted to watch it happen up close.
He was also the one who'd handed Joseph the idea that made the film possible. Nobody hands a crew real F1 cars; there were twenty of them on the planet and each cost more than most films ever earned. So Wolff had offered the workaround himself.
Take a Formula 2 car, the cheaper machine from the feeder series, and let Mercedes build it into something that looked like the real thing. Stretch the body, widen it, hang the lines of a current F1 car over an F2 frame until it could line up on a grid and fool the people in the grandstand.
The car was finished and waiting in the garage.
It was nothing like the two-seat F2 the two of them had trained in. This one was a single-seater, low and lean, and from a few steps back it simply read as an F1 car.
The F2 bones were still under the skin, but it had lost none of its pace doing it; that had been Wolff's one demand. And it was a car built around the camera. Sixteen of them set into the body, ready to catch every angle inside the cockpit.
A film set on wheels. Still a racing car when you turned the key.
So when Lucas and Brad took the cars out, the garage lit up with screens. Sixteen feeds apiece, every angle live at the same time, the road over the nose and the wheel under their hands and their faces inside the helmets, all of it at once.
Hamilton watched it with his arms folded, and the longer it went, the quieter he got. Wolff stood next to him, the same.
"Okay. You weren't exaggerating, Joe." Wolff kept his eyes on the monitor. "A few weeks. That's all he's had, and he's sitting right on Brad's gearbox." He watched a corner go by, then shook his head. "No, that's not even it. He's got more than that in his pocket. He's just hanging back there on purpose. Letting Brad keep the front so the man keeps his pride."
Hamilton didn't look away from the screen either. "It's not even the driving that's getting to me. Watch his face going into the corner. He's acting. Flat out, the whole lap, and it holds up on every camera in there." He added. "I keep waiting to catch it slip. Half a second, anywhere. It doesn't happen."
Joseph's grin spread and stayed put. "What did I tell you two? The man isn't normal. Put him in anything and he just works it out."
Neither of them had an argument for that.
When the casting had first crossed their desks, Lucas had been a marketing number to them and nothing deeper.
The most famous young face alive, the richest, a name that filled seats with people who had never watched a lap of racing in their lives.
Whether he could actually drive had never once come up. There'd been no reason for it to. Now they were watching him run a line a professional would gladly sign his name to, and they were both rewriting everything they'd assumed about him.
Out on the circuit, the run came to an end. The two of them had found their feet at Willow Springs, a far nastier track than the flat, forgiving Thermal, and they were still on top of it.
Luciano and Craig had been out there the whole time, riding herd on Lucas, coaching him through every lap.
The cars rolled in and went quiet, one after the other. Lucas and Brad climbed out and crossed to where Joseph and the rest were standing, helmets tucked under their arms.
Wolff started clapping before they'd reached him. "Incredible. Absolutely incredible. The two of you out there, that was a thing to watch. You especially, Lucas."
"Thank you, Mr. Wolff." Lucas tugged a glove off by the fingers.
"Please, none of that." Wolff brushed it aside. "It's Toto. You've got more money than I do anyway, so we can drop the mister."
A laugh went around the group.
Brad pulled his helmet free, his face perfectly even. "So I'll just keep it at Mr. Wolff, then."
It took a beat. Then it caught all at once, and the laughter doubled.
Wolff jabbed a finger at him, shaking his head. "You. You're a friend, Brad. You don't get to hide behind manners with me."
When it settled, Hamilton stepped in, and the racer came out in him.
He turned to Brad first, plain about it. "You're losing the front into the long right. You're going in too hot, washing out wide, then fighting the car all the way to the exit. Brake a touch earlier, ease it in, let it rotate. You'll carry more speed and do half the work."
Brad nodded, taking it. "Yeah. I can feel it pushing on me right there. Alright."
Then Hamilton looked at Lucas, and for once he had nothing ready. "And you." He stopped, almost laughed at himself. "I went hunting for something to fix and there's nothing there. You're driving it cleaner than men who've done it for a living." He held the pause, then asked the thing actually on his mind. "Which is why I've got to ask. Would you take a real one out? An actual F1 car."
Joseph frowned the moment it left his mouth. So did Luciano and Craig.
"Tell me you're joking, Lewis." There was no humor in Joseph's face. "You of anyone know what those cars are. He's good in the F2, fine, no argument. But a real F1 car is a different animal. The downforce alone puts loads through your neck and your chest that you train years for, and at that speed one small mistake doesn't get a second take. It gets an ambulance."
Craig backed him before Joseph had finished. "He's right. The F2 lets you get away with things. The F1 doesn't. You make one bad call in that car and it's the last one you get to make." Luciano just nodded along, dead serious about it.
Wolff raised a hand. "I'm with them, Lewis. And believe me, nobody wants to see what this man can really do more than I do." He spread his hands. "But we are not rich enough to find out. You want to put a multi-billionaire in a live F1 car? Bring me the insurance company that signs off on it, and then we'll talk."
Brad capped it, easy but with no give in it. He laid a hand on Lucas's shoulder. "Yeah, that's a hard no from me too. I've spent weeks watching this guy soak up everything we put in front of him. That's the exact reason I'm not letting anybody drop him into a car that won't forgive him one bad corner."
Lewis felt the disappointment settle as he watched the whole group close ranks around Lucas. He gave a small shrug. "Shame."
He thought about it for a second, then: "I could get him in a real one, you know. Just a few laps, somewhere quiet, see if he can handle it. If he can, that's it. That's the most real thing we could ever put in this movie."
Joseph shook his head before he'd finished. "It's a kind offer, Lewis. But no."
What none of them knew was that Lucas wanted it more than any man standing there. In the [Mind Workshop] he had already driven the real thing, or as close to it as the simulation could build, and he knew exactly how brutal and frightening an F1 car was at the edge.
That was the reason behind the itch, not something he felt in spite of it. He wanted to know whether the genuine machine would match the one he'd run inside his own head.
'If the simulation got it right, I already know what it feels like. I just want to feel it for real.'
"For what it's worth, I'd love to." Lucas said it with a smile, hands sliding into his pockets. "But it isn't only my call. My manager, Neil, would have a heart attack and then a second one for good measure. He's not here today, lucky for me. The minute he caught wind of me climbing into a real F1 car, he'd have my head on the wall. I'd never hear the end of it."
Lewis let out a breath. "I get it." A nod. "And for the record, it isn't in anybody's contract anyway. You, Brad, none of the cast are signed to drive a real one for this. The dressed-up F2 is as far as it was ever meant to go."
Toto spoke up from the side. "Which is another reason to keep him in one piece." He glanced around the group. "I've been hearing Lucas might be named the first ever Global Ambassador for Formula 1. If that's true, the sport would very much like him not in a hospital bed."
That got Lewis. "Wait, seriously? That's the first I'm hearing of it."
"Nothing official." Toto lifted a shoulder. "Just talk. But it's been going around a while now." A chuckle slipped out of him, and he tipped his head toward Lucas. "Then again, the man himself is standing right here. Why don't we just ask him?" He let it sit a second. "Word is they've put eighty million on the table for it."
The number landed. Joseph, Brad, Luciano, Craig, the rest of them turned almost in unison.
"Eighty? That's real?"
Brad let out a low whistle. "Eighty million to wave at a crowd a handful of times a year. Lucas, you make the rest of us look like we're working for tips."
Lucas raised both hands, laughing it off. "Nothing's signed. It's all still up in the air." Then the grin went a touch rueful. "Although I suppose me not denying it just turned every one of those rumors true, didn't it."
The group laughed, and the talk wandered from there, the loose way it does between people with a long day behind them, before it drifted back to the work, the schedule, the scenes still in front of them.
---
Two weeks passed at Willow Springs, and by the end of them Lewis had reached a conclusion he hadn't expected this soon. The cast was ready. Ready for real production. He still found it hard to wrap his head around the two leads getting here on a few months of prep.
He'd walked in bracing for a year of it, maybe longer, before he and the driving coaches would be willing to sign off on either of them. Brad had real seat time behind him from his Maverick days, so Lewis had figured he'd find his footing soon enough. Lucas, new to every part of it, was the one he'd pegged for the long road.
It went the other way entirely.
Lucas wasn't keeping up. He was setting the pace. Brad held his own, and held it well, but he could not match the younger man no matter where he found the extra tenth.
In the end there was no question left about who needed more time in the car. Nobody did. The coaches were satisfied, and so was Lewis.
In the cockpit Lucas was a performance the cameras drank straight down, every angle of it, and Brad gave them the same. If anything, Brad seemed to run on the kid's improvement. Watching Lucas climb pushed him harder than a man his age had any business going, and the footage showed it.
And so, with that settled, real filming was almost on top of them.
The first principal shoot would happen inside an actual Grand Prix. The United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, on the twenty-second of October.
The original plan had been the British round at Silverstone, but that one had come and gone back in July, so the US race took its place. Convenient enough, with the production already sitting in the state.
F1 had granted them a ten-to-twenty-minute filming window between sessions across the weekend, along with the go-ahead to stand up the fictional APXGP team in the paddock. Black and gold, an eleventh outfit slotted in among the real ten.
Then, ahead of the race, F1 did the thing that lit the fuse. They told the fans. An official announcement introducing APXGP, what it was, what to expect from it over the weekend.
That much on its own would have been a story. What turned it into a bonfire was the rest of it. F1 confirmed that Lucas Knight and Brad Pitt would be the two drivers of that fictional eleventh team, out on track at the Austin Grand Prix.
The second it went public, the media lost its collective mind.
CNN — A Hollywood star is about to drive in Formula 1. Sort of.
ESPN — Lucas Knight, Brad Pitt to pilot fictional 'APXGP' entry at U.S. Grand Prix, F1 confirms
Sky Sports F1 — APXGP at COTA: What that 'eleventh team' really is, and why Knight and Pitt get a 20-minute track window
Autosport — F1 sanctions APXGP film cars for Austin track running as Knight, Pitt step up
The Athletic — F1 bet big on Hollywood. In Austin, with Knight and Pitt, we find out if it pays off
Variety — Lucas Knight Goes From 'The Brutalist' to the Grid in Apple's F1 Movie (Exclusive)
Motorsport.com — The APXGP cars aren't real F1 machines. Here's what Knight and Pitt are actually driving
Formula1.com — Everything you need to know about APXGP ahead of their United States Grand Prix debut
The Hollywood Reporter — Lucas Knight's F1 Turn Sends Austin GP Ticket Demand Through the Roof
BBC Sport — Knight and Pitt to take to track at United States Grand Prix with new APXGP team
The comment sections did the rest.
"wait lucas knight is in F1 now?? i have never watched a car turn left in my life and i just bought a ticket to austin"
"my whole fyp went from skincare to formula 1 in one night and i know exactly which man to blame for this"
"hold on. LUCAS AND BRAD PITT are in a movie together?? and i'm finding this out from. formula one. not a trailer, not apple, the official F1 account just casually dropped it between race results"
"i don't understand a single thing about this sport but if lucas is in a little car going fast then i support the little car"
"ok actual F1 fan here, came in ready to be insufferable about the hollywood circus, then found out the cars are real modified F2s they're properly driving. fine. i'm listening"
"APXGP being the '11th team' is killing me. we have BEGGED the FIA for an 11th entry for years and a film crew strolled in and got one"
"a twenty minute window on a live race weekend is insane access, F1 does not hand that out, somebody at the top really wants this apple film to land"
"i will not believe any of this until i see an onboard of lucas knight actually holding that thing through turn 1"
"casuals about to flood COTA for two men who aren't even in the championship and honestly? good for the sport. terrible for my legroom"
The noise didn't die down. If anything, with the race still weeks out, it only kept building.
It trended massively, and F1 was not hurt by a second of the attention. Knight and Pitt fans swarmed every channel the sport had, and overnight a wave of people who had never known a thing about racing decided they suddenly needed to. Engagement numbers no marketing budget could buy, all of it landing for free.
The damage sat underneath the good news.
The tickets had become a commodity. Scalpers moved in fast, hoovering up what they could and turning around to sell it to celebrity fans at a markup.
It wasn't on the scale of a stadium concert; nobody was paying five figures to stand in a Texas grandstand. But it was real, and it was a problem that had existed before Lucas ever entered the picture, only now it wore his name and grew teeth because of it. Even genuine F1 regulars were flipping their own seats, the temptation of a too-good offer winning out over loyalty to a race weekend they'd have attended anyway.
The end result was simple. A ticket to Austin, never the easiest thing to come by, had quietly gotten harder.
None of it reached Lucas in any way that mattered. He'd long since stopped tracking the noise his name generated; it was background weather at this point, something that happened in the distance whether he watched it or not.
What sat with him instead was the date on the calendar.
The twenty-second was no longer an abstraction on a production schedule. It was a real Grand Prix, a real grid, real cars and real drivers, and somewhere in the middle of all of it, a fictional team with his name on the side. The simulation in his head had carried him this far. Soon enough he'd find out how closely it matched the thing itself.