tom cruise in f1 car

Tom Cruise's relationship with Formula 1

F1 fans probably noticed Hollywood star Tom Cruise attending this past weekend's grand prix. The 59-year-old actor was quite happy when Lewis Hamilton won his eighth British GP title at Silverstone. So, lets take a look at Tom Cruise's relationship with Formula 1.

Promotional video for Channel 4

Tom Cruise shoots a promotional video for Channel 4.In a video also starring Mark Webber and David Coulthard, Tom Cruise challenges the former F1 drivers to a dogfight.

Source: SeventySixBucks

Tom cruise spotted in mercedes garage.

The American actor was spotted in the Mercedes garage at British Grand Prix. Tom Cruise celebrated emphatically when Hamilton overtook Charles Leclerc with just three laps to go.

Red Bull Gave  Tom Cruise a Need for Speed

Red Bull team offered Tom Cruise a chance to hop into their F1 car and he was not about to turn down an opportunity. The Hollywood star turned up at the Willow Springs circuit in style, onboard a helicopter.

Source: Red Bull/YouTube

David coulthard showed him the basics.

Since this was Cruise’s first time in an F1 car, the former F1 driver, David Coulthard helped him out and explained some of the basics. Finally, the American actor got his run underway.

"Not bad mark, for a number two driver"

Tom Cruise goes wheel to wheel with the former Red Bull driver, Mark Webber at the Silverstone circuit. The duo was seen driving lightning-fast Porsche 911 GT3.

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Tom Cruise drives a Red Bull F1 car

That's Tom Cruise, above. A man not to be confused with legendary Australian mailman Tom Kruse, or indeed founder of the Hoveround electric wheelchair company, Tom Kruse.

No, Tom Cruise is a part-time American actor and full-time petrolhead. You may also remember him from Top Gear TV - he popped down to our fashionably shabby studios and posted a ridiculously fast lap for someone who drives on the wrong side of the road. And just yesterday, he was given the opportunity to pilot an 850bhp Red Bull F1 car.

See more pics of Tom Cruise driving a Red Bull F1 car

Tom Cruise - that's Mr to you - was invited by the beverage company to sample the top tier of motorsport at the Willow Springs raceway in Rosamund, California. With instruction from David Coulthard, Tom completed 24 laps over a seven-hour period and reached a top speed of 181mph - just 4mph off Coulthard's top speed - around the 2.5-mile circuit. And it was his very first go in an F1 car.

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"Tom's the real deal," says Coulthard. "I was surprised that he picked it up so quickly and is such an accomplished driver."

In fact, Tom managed to improve his lap time by almost eleven seconds from the first lap to the last. "His recall was incredible considering how complicated driving an F1 car is," says Coulthard. "This day was not green screened. He thoroughly impressed me."

Gallery: Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz at the Top Gear studio

Yeah, yeah, suppose he's not that bad. After all, he did get a very reasonably priced Korean hatchback onto two wheels...

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Tom Cruise drives Red Bull race car

Tom Cruise reached a speed of 181 miles per hour when he tested a Red Bull race car.

The motoring fanatic - who starred in 1990 stock car racing film 'Days of Thunder' - impressed former Formula 1 (F1) driver David Coulthard with his skills behind the wheel when took control of the 850-horsepower vehicle on a 2.5km race track in Rosamond, southern California.

Tom completed 24 laps during the seven-hour high octane session - his first in an F1 car - and his top speed was just four miles per hour short of David's best on the same day.

David said: "Tom's the real deal. He thoroughly impressed me. I was surprised that he picked it up so quickly and is such an accomplished driver.

"His recall was incredible considering how complicated driving an F1 car is. He's a guy who really pushes the envelope in real life.

"This day was not green screened!"

Tom is also a keen motorbike rider and has done his own bike stunts in several of his movies including the 'Mission: Impossible' franchise and 'Knight and Day', in which he starred with Cameron Diaz.

When he isn't pulling off bike stunts, Tom is also a big fan of cruising on his motorcycles, particularly on the coastal roads of Northern California.

Tom - who is married to actress Katie Holmes - said: "I love cruising the Pacific Coast Highway. Up north, as you're driving up to Montecito - that's the great drive. I like the wonderful off-camber turns. You take it about two, three in the morning. I like the empty road at night, the nice sweeping turns. It can be challenging as well as fun."

(C) BANG Media International

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Remember When Tom Cruise Crushed His Red Bull Racing F1 Test Drive?

Through one way or another, Tom Cruise has consistently been linked with the world of F1.

Over the years, he’s been papped hanging around the Mercedes garage at Silverstone during the 2021 British Grand Prix; linked up with retired Formula 1 legends David Coulthard and Mark Webber to film a Porsche “dogfight” and promote Top Gun: Maverick ; and (allegedly) put the moves on a newly-single Shakira at the most recent Miami Grand Prix.

RELATED: First Look — Brad Pitt’s Formula 1 Movie Being Filmed At The British Grand Prix

The year was 2011.

Never one to shy away from an honest challenge or batshit crazy stunt, Tom Cruise hopped into the F1 race rig without a single hesitation post-technical briefing session from David Coulthard himself.

“For someone that is so skilled in his main career, he’s able to take in information very quickly and then go replay that on the race track,” explained the 13-time Grand Prix winner.

“He’s been through a lot of tracks done a lot of laps. So he’s got the visual, he understands the, you know, how to take the car around the race track… it was remarkable how quick he got up to speed.” googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-ArticlesPOS5'); });

That wasn’t just empty praise, either.

With the exception of a single incident which saw TC skid off-track and into the dirt, at 291 km/h, he was just 6.4 km/h slower than Coulthard’s regular pace. And by his final lap, his pace had improved by a considerable 11 seconds.

Not to throw around the phrase “natural talent” around so liberally, but when a professional says you have the aptitude for driving an F1 car, “natural talent” is quite an appropriate term. Though the shenanigans didn’t end there…

RELATED: Brad Pitt To Drive At British Grand Prix For Apple’s Formula 1 Movie

After informally reprising his role as Days of Thunder’s Cole Trickle and suiting down, Tom Cruise was still fiending for some adrenaline. Which was why he found his way into the cockpit of a Red Bull aerobatic helicopter.

And keep in mind, this was all before he officially earned his helicopter pilot’s license for a sequence featured in 2018’s Mission: Impossible — Fallout .

“All in a day’s work for someone like that,” remarked David Coulthard.

Or as one commenter of the video has astutely pointed out, Tom Cruise is a living advertisement for what life should be — check out his run in David Coulthard’s Red Bull Racing F1 car above now.

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Tom Cruise drives F1 car, impresses David Coulthard

Hollywood superstar tom cruise has impressed former formula one driver david coulthard by reaching 181 miles per hour during a red bull race car testing..

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Top Gun: Maverick director’s F1 movie will film Brad Pitt driving at real race weekends

Tom Cruise is already jealous, but Pitt will be in slower machinery

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Share All sharing options for: Top Gun: Maverick director’s F1 movie will film Brad Pitt driving at real race weekends

Brad Pitt will do a Tom Cruise in his new Formula One movie — which is directed and produced by Top Gun: Maverick ’s Joseph Kosinski and Jerry Bruckheimer — by driving a race car for real, on actual race weekends, starting at the 2023 British Grand Prix in July. And it sounds like Tom Cruise is pretty envious about it — the Top Gun star and incorrigible thrillseeker has already offered to do some extra driving if they need him.

But claims that Pitt will drive an actual F1 car for the film are overstated — according to reports, he’ll be behind the wheel of a slower mock-up. And he won’t be competing against other drivers on the track.

Kosinski and Bruckheimer revealed the plan for filming their movie during a panel at the F1 Accelerate Summit in Miami on Thursday, ahead of this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix. Panel host Will Buxton summarized the highlights of their chat on Twitter , and was the one to claim that Pitt would be “driving an F1 car.”

They’ve spent 18 months taking what they learnt on Top Gun Maverick to develop the smallest moveable 6k camera ever designed to take the viewer into the cockpit. A cockpit in which their stars will actually drive. That’s right. Brad Pitt driving an F1 car from Silverstone onwards — Will Buxton (@wbuxtonofficial) May 4, 2023

Buxton said the film production was “creating an 11th team” for the movie in consultation with the Mercedes F1 team, which has designed and tested the car the film team will use. Filming will take place “on track and on event,” with the stars (Pitt included) in the cockpit driving, captured by compact camera rigs similar to those used to put viewers in the cockpit of fighter planes in Top Gun: Maverick . The actors are already practicing on track and using simulation rigs, while seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton is a consulting producer on the film.

Filming on track at actual F1 race meetings will give the currently untitled movie the kind of authenticity and spectacle that made Maverick a global smash. But Buxton’s comments — particularly that Pitt will drive actual F1 machinery — should be taken with a grain of salt. Variety has subsequently confirmed that Pitt will not race against other drivers on the track, and the car he drives will be most likely be a much more manageable junior F2 or F3 car, modified to look like an F1 beast.

It’s not surprising. Driving an F1 car in anger requires not only great skill and reflexes but an incredible level of strength and physical fitness; Pitt, at 59, has almost two decades on the oldest driver currently on the grid, the great Spanish champion Fernando Alonso, who’s 40. Hamilton is 37, and most of the rest of the field are in their 20s. It’s true that Cruise, at a similar age, endured the G-forces of an F-18 jet for Maverick , but even he, a skilled pilot, didn’t try to fly it at the same time.

There’s also no way that the actors and film crew will be allowed to interfere with the integrity of the race event itself, for both sporting and safety reasons. Racing licences for drivers are strictly regulated, and, at F1’s level, take years to acquire. It seems most likely that special filming sessions — possibly involving some of the actual F1 teams and drivers — will be scheduled around the rest of the race event.

“It will be quite invasive in terms of production, it’s something that we need to control in a way,” F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali told F1 investors a few weeks ago . “But it will be another way of showing that F1 never stops.”

Why go to all this trouble? Because the movie — which has been acquired by Apple, but will have a wide theatrical release before going to Apple TV Plus — presents a massive marketing opportunity for F1. The Netflix documentary series Drive to Survive has hugely increased the popularity of the sport, especially in the U.S. and with younger viewers. F1 owner Liberty Media is hoping the film will take it to the next level.

In the movie, Pitt will play “a driver who comes out of retirement to compete alongside a rookie driver against the titans of the sport,” according to its official logline. His teammate will be played by British actor Damson Idris, star of the FX series Snowfall .

Buxton said that Kosinski’s “biggest touchstone” for the new film is John Frankenheimer’s 1966 movie Grand Prix . That film featured cameos from a number of contemporary F1 drivers, and used footage shot at real race events. World champion Phil Hill captured footage from the wheel of a modified camera car during sessions at the Monaco and Belgian Grands Prix, and star James Garner did some of his own driving. Kosinski and Bruckheimer “are determined to make the most accurate, most impressive race movie anyone has ever seen,” Buxton said.

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