‘F1’ Exclusive Clip: Brad Pitt Spars with Racing Rookie Damson Idris and Feels Sparks with Kerry Condon

The odds are stacked against Brad Pitt in his action-packed new movie F1. 

In a new clip from the film shared exclusively with PEOPLE, Pitt, 61, faces an uphill battle as Sonny Hayes, a retired racer contemplating a return to Formula One. 

Technically, it’s team owner Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) who is making that return a possibility, taking Sonny onto the racetrack to introduce him to mechanic Dodge (Abdul Salis), team principal Kaspar (Kim Bodnia) and technical director Kate (Kerry Condon).

As the clip shows, it’s not the best of first impressions. Though there appears to be an initial spark between Sonny and Kate, Pitt’s character otherwise navigates the awkward revelation that his “audition” to join their team is far from the first they’ve had. The bumpiest intro of all is with the driver Ruben calls their “talented rookie,” Joshua (Damson Idris). 

“Why has he got a helmet?” asks the skeptical Joshua by way of hello. “Uh, safety?” quips Sonny. 

But when Kaspar protests about giving Ruben’s “long-lost teammate an audition,” Bardem’s character has an intriguing response: “You misunderstand. We’re not auditioning him; he’s auditioning us.”

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Directed by Joseph Kosinski and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, the team behind 2022 hit Top Gun: Maverick, F1 was filmed in collaboration with the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA). Seven-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton is among the producers of the Ehren Kruger-written film.

Per a synopsis, “Sonny’s past catches up with him and he finds that in Formula 1, your teammate is your fiercest competition — and the road to redemption is not something you can travel alone.”

Alongside real-life Formula One racers, Pitt and Idris, 33, did much of their own driving. Pitt “trained for four or five months. He’s an amazing driver,” Bruckheimer told PEOPLE last year during filming. “In fact, some of the F1 drivers said he’s a natural athlete.”

“It was a seamless dynamic between us. As soon as they’d yell ‘Cut,’ we both sat at our seats and giggled,” Idris recalled to PEOPLE in May of the mentor-mentee relationship he developed with Pitt. 

F1, from Apple Original Films, is in theaters June 27 — just days before the Austrian Grand Prix.