Brad Pitt reveals why Mercedes and Ferrari pit crews couldn’t stop laughing at APX GP team

The A-lister explained why F1 personnel “laughed their a**es off” at the APX GP crew during their first weekend filming in the paddock

Brad Pitt unveiled a rare piece of ‘F1’ movie memorabilia that caused multiple teams in the paddock to “laugh their a**es off” at the film crew. During an appearance on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, Pitt gave the host a gift from the movie set: a black and gold APX GP polo shirt.

“This is from day one,” he said, revealing that the cast originally donned the shirts during their first day of filming at the 2023 British Grand Prix. “This is the pit crew shirt. We had a real crew of proper car guys, and decided to bring the shirts out for them on day one at Silverstone,” Pitt recalled.

“We're filming the crowds, it's race weekend, and they start getting s**t from the other teams because of what's on the back,” Pitt went on. Shepard then turned the polo around to reveal three words on the lower back: ‘The Action Factory.’”

“They put it on as a tramp stamp,” Pitt laughed. “And we started getting so much s**t from other crews. We were between Mercedes and Ferrari and they're laughing their a**es off at our team. So they had to switch out all the shirts and change them.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Shepard recalled texting Pitt about the Netflix series ‘Drive to Survive’ several years ago, and asked the Hollywood heavyweight whether he had watched any F1 races following the success of the show.

Cast and crew filming a scene for his upcoming movie featuring the fictional Apex racing team

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

“I had been watching a little because there’s just not enough Moto GP races, so then you start dipping into F1 a little bit,” the avid motorcycle fan explained. “Now there's not enough F1 races, so I start dipping into Indy … I've stepped into NASCAR a little bit too.”

In the film, Pitt plays washed-up former driver Sonny Hayes, who’s parachuted in at the eleventh hour in an attempt to save the flailing APX GP team. He stars alongside Damson Idris as his rookie teammate Joshua Pierce, and Javier Bardem as the embattled team owner. ‘F1’ arrives in cinemas globally this week.