Think about what you felt watching that Brad Pitt film on an eight-storey screen last summer. The engine noise rattling your chest. The pit lane chaos filling your peripheral vision. Now picture that exact format, except the race is real, the result is live, and Lando Norris is actually out there fighting for position.
That is what Apple TV and IMAX just confirmed. F1 live in IMAX is not a concept anymore. It is a confirmed, five-race programme launching at over 50 locations across the United States, starting at the Miami Grand Prix on May 3.
The Five Races on the Big Screen
Apple and IMAX picked the five races most likely to pull a crowd that goes beyond the existing F1 fanbase. Each one carries cultural weight. Each one delivers maximum visual spectacle. Here is exactly what is confirmed.
- Miami Grand Prix, May 3 at 4pm ET. The race that Americanised F1 becomes the first live Grand Prix ever screened in IMAX history.
- Monaco Grand Prix, June 7 at 9am ET. The most cinematic street circuit on the planet, now literally inside a cinema.
- British Grand Prix at Silverstone, July 5 at 10am ET. Home race for the sport’s most passionate fanbase, on a screen that does Copse Corner the justice it deserves.
- Italian Grand Prix at Monza, September 6 at 9am ET. The Temple of Speed at full IMAX volume. The Tifosi, amplified.
- United States Grand Prix at Austin, October 25 at 4pm ET. The home crowd finale. The curtain call.
Crucially, ticket pricing and participating theater lists have not yet been confirmed. IMAX and Apple have opened a registration page for fans who want early access when tickets go live.
Brad Pitt Built the Runway
F1: The Movie, shot entirely on IMAX-certified digital cameras by director Joseph Kosinski, grossed $654 million at the global box office. Of that total, $97.6 million came exclusively from IMAX screens, making it the highest-grossing Hollywood release on IMAX in all of 2025.
Furthermore, the film now carries a Best Picture nomination at the 98th Academy Awards next month, which is the kind of cultural legitimacy that boardrooms at Apple and IMAX take very seriously. IMAX Chief Content Officer Jonathan Fischer confirmed the direct connection. The film, he said, “proved beyond a doubt that the speed, precision, and artistry of Formula 1 translate beautifully to the IMAX Experience.”
What Apple Actually Built Here
Apple constructed a full distribution ecosystem. The five-year deal, confirmed in October 2025, hands Apple TV exclusive US rights to every session of every race weekend through 2030. Select content, including full practice sessions, is available free inside the Apple TV app, which means a casual viewer gets pulled into Apple’s ecosystem before they ever open their wallet. Subscribers at $12.99 per month get everything, including F1 TV Premium access that previously required a separate subscription entirely.
Consequently, the IMAX programme sits at the top of a funnel that Apple has already engineered from the bottom up. It targets the fan who wants Formula 1 as a full event night out, not a second screen they scroll past on a Sunday morning.
Oliver Schusser, Apple’s VP of Music, Sports, and Beats, put it plainly. “We’re delivering the energy and excitement to even more screens in a truly immersive way.” Read that as a growth strategy, not a fan gesture.
The Audience Apple Is Actually Chasing
The US F1 fanbase reached 52 million people in 2024. Nearly half of all new American fans who joined the sport in the last five years are between 18 and 24 years old. Over half of those new fans are female. These are not people who were watching a cable broadcast at 8am on a Sunday. These are people who saw the Brad Pitt film, followed it on social media, and now want the real thing.
IMAX is not just a screen format in this context. It is a social occasion. You book it, you bring people along, you post about it. Consequently, Apple and IMAX are not just broadcasting a race. They are selling an experience that markets itself through the audience attending it. That is a fundamentally different business model. And it is working before the first flag drops in Miami.
What Comes Next
Australia opens the 2026 season on March 8 without IMAX. That race will be the first real test of Apple TV’s production quality on its own. Miami on May 3 then arrives as the true moment of reckoning, the first time F1 live in IMAX reaches American audiences at full scale. If it works, and every commercial signal suggests it will, five races become a floor rather than a ceiling.
The conversation about Las Vegas, Singapore, and São Paulo starts immediately after Miami’s numbers come in. Formula 1 has always presented itself as the world’s most glamorous sport. Apple and IMAX just gave it the most glamorous distribution deal the sport has ever seen.
Fifty screens. Five races. One direction of travel. Go and book your seat before Miami sells out.
