Wolff admits he felt 'cringed' while filming this scene for the 'F1' movie

Toto Wolff, who made a brief cameo in the Formula 1–themed film by Brad Pitt and Lewis Hamilton released on June 25, admitted that he felt “cringed” while shooting the scene.

The new Formula 1–themed film, starring Brad Pitt as Sonny Hayes and Damson Idris as young Joshua Pearce, has achieved major box office success.

Just days ago, reports showed the movie had earned $552.5 million globally. That figure has since climbed to $590 million — roughly €489.5 million, according to Box Office Mojo.

With this milestone, the film has now overtaken Cars 2, which closed its run at $559.8 million, or about €480 million, with F1 now standing as the most successful motorsport film of all time.

The winning formula lay in blending classic cinematic storytelling with the real-life action on track and the involvement of today’s actual Formula 1 stars.

Toto Wolff in Hungary

Wolff and the anecdote behind the F1 movie

One of them is Toto Wolff, Mercedes CEO and team principal, who also filmed a brief cameo alongside Idris near the end of the movie, specifically after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

In the cameo, Wolff turns to Joshua Pearce and tells him that if he ever considers joining another team outside of APX GP in the future, Mercedes would be interested.

Asked by the Wall Street Journal what it was like to act in a real film, the Austrian replied: ''It was interesting, being part of the conversations with Brad [Pitt] or with Javier Bardem, and Joe Kosinski and Jerry Bruckheimer.''

Wolff then shared a funny anecdote about his scene: ''At the end I have this little cameo. They say it’s great, but I think they’re lying to me. It makes me cringe. It was in Abu Dhabi after the race. There was no hair and makeup.''

''They were like, Let’s do this now. They were a bit annoyed with me because I think I did the scene five times. I wanted it to be good—not that the outcome actually was good.''

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