“This Is Literally Against The Rules”: Here’s What “F1: The Movie” Got Wrong About Formula 1

While watching F1: The Movie, I had a notepad and pen and was tallying the number of women depicted as employees of APXGP, both at the track and the factory. It’s possible I missed some in the split seconds that I was reaching down to snack on popcorn, but still, by the end of the film, I had spotted only four women in the team’s uniform. 

Now, I don’t want to complain too much, as I think it was great that Kerry Condon’s character, Kate, was portrayed as the team’s kick-ass technical director and one of the film’s key players. However, given that she was the most prominent female character in the movie, I wasn’t obsessed with the fact that they brought her professionalism into question by having her fall in love with Sonny, as if she couldn’t help herself. 

Additionally, I think we could’ve done with a few more women working on the fictional APXGP team. Sure, the F1 paddock has long been dominated by men, both in the cars and out of them, but times are changing, and there are more women than ever before working in roles up and down the paddock. With that in mind, I would’ve loved to have seen a better depiction of that in the movie. Would it have been that hard?