Brad Pitt Didn’t Want to Stop Filming ‘F1’ and More Set Secrets (Exclusive)

It was no easy feat getting Brad Pitt out from behind the wheel when filming wrapped on F1.

The Oscar winner, 61, plays washed-up Formula 1 driver Sonny Hayes in the new film, directed by Top Gun: Maverick filmmaker Joseph Kosinski. Enlisted by his longtime friend and former teammate Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), Sonny joins struggling Formula 1 team APXGP, where he clashes with cocky rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) while trying to get the team on the podium for the first time ever.

To prepare for the roles, both Pitt and Idris underwent four months of “really intense training to get up to the level they needed to shoot this movie,” Kosinski tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “They’re both natural athletes, which made it possible to even make this film.”

“They trained really hard,” producer Jerry Bruckheimer echoes. “They put four months in, just starting with the road car and then moving up to four-car. They kept moving up to our car and they put that energy and time into it and they became one then — the car and their body and their mind — just centered on the driving and the racing.”

Pitt “just had a feel for the car” thanks to “years of riding motorcycles,” but getting seven-time Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton’s stamp of approval is what really sealed the deal.

“I had Lewis Hamilton drive with Brad right at the beginning to kind of see his level of skill,” says Kosinski, 51. “And Lewis was really impressed that Brad kind of had that talent right out of the gate.”

“He was so good,” Idris, 33, says of his costar and onscreen rival-turned-teammate. “I was watching him all the time.”

“On the track, we both had so much fun. We drove up to 180 miles per hour sometimes,” the British actor reveals. “And what you see onscreen is our real reactions.”

Despite the high speeds — or maybe even because of them — Pitt “couldn’t wait to get” behind the wheel from the get-go, Bruckheimer, 81, shares. When it came time to put the cameras away after two years of filming, “We had to tear him out of the car.”

“The saddest day for Brad was when we said, ‘It’s a wrap,’ and he had to climb out of the car,” says Bruckheimer. “He just loved it. They both [did]. They had the best time.”

For more about F1, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

It “wasn’t all fun and games though,” Kerry Condon, who plays APXGP’s technical director, Kate, notes, as she sheds light on the cast’s demanding schedules that allowed them to shoot during real Formula 1 events across the world.

“We were very prepared for our stuff that was shooting live at the Grand Prix, so we were all ready for that.”

They had just a narrow window to get the shot they needed at any given event — and they filmed at the real races in Las Vegas, Mexico City, Abu Dhabi and Hungary. There was typically only “one or two” takes allowed. “If we’re lucky, we could run back quickly and get another one,” Condon recalls.

“We’d have five to 10 minutes to get something,” Idris says. “And we’ve got a crowd there and a real race is happening.”

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The pressure was perhaps never higher than it was in Las Vegas. “It’s a street track; it’s only up for a few nights out a year,” Kosinski recalls. “We had one 15-minute slot in the middle of the night to shoot that scene with Brad. It’s pretty intense.”

Between the “dangerous” nature of the track itself, “cause it has no runoff,” and the low temperatures, which meant “the tires did not have a lot of grip,” the stakes were high.

“It’s an intense scene,” Kosinski says. “The action’s intense, the emotion’s intense, and Brad really brought it.”

F1 is now in theaters.