People are pretty simple animals — we like it when something goes fast. I mean, really fast. Jet planes, rocket ships, race cars, etc. Even other animals, like the cheetah on land, the peregrine falcon in the sky and the black marlin in the sea leave us in awe.

It’s no wonder then that a few years ago the movie “Top Gun: Maverick” was a big hit. Of course the Tom Cruise factor helps, but it’s the care and attention that director Joseph Kosinski and his team put into making the scenes of Navy pilots flying real jets at top speeds and making the audience feel like they were right there in the cockpit that put it over the edge.

Now, three years later, Kosinski is back to do essentially the same thing out on the race track with “F1,” putting the audience in the driver’s seat of 200-mile-per-hour machines, zipping through courses around the world with the same realistic approach

As a sports movie, it has every cliché you can think of, but as an experience for the big screen with those surround sound speakers, “F1” speeds past the competition as another essential example of what going to the movies is all about.

Aging American racing driver and former Formula One prodigy Sonny Hayes (played by Brad Pitt) lives nomadically as a racer-for-hire. After winning the 24 Hours of Daytona, his former Lotus teammate Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), who owns the APXGP F1 Team, offers him a chance to fill their spare seat.

Coming into APXGP as an outsider, Hayes meets technical director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon) and ambitious British rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), who reveal that seven drivers had turned down the opportunity before Hayes, and his reputation precedes him.

Initially butting heads both on and off the track, Hayes and Pearce begin to admit they each have ideas to contribute toward bettering the team. With the support of Ruben and Kate, the two take their unique approaches into the driver’s seat in hopes of securing a win by the end of the season.

More than anything, this feels closer to a Western than a sports drama. Pitt rides into town on his trusty steed (an old van), has seen better days but still knows how to quick draw (drive fast) and teaches the young new sheriff (Pearce) a thing or two before riding off into the sunset for another town in need.

Of course, all the classic sports movie clichés are here, but they thankfully left a few of the more groan-worthy clichés out. For one, there’s no real villain except. Yes, they need to win at least one race or Ruben will be forced to sell the team, but the only thing our protagonists really have to beat is their own fastest times from the lap before. The other drivers from the other teams are not portrayed as 1980s bullies, and it was quite refreshing.

Yes, both older Hayes and younger Pearce do butt heads and don’t live up to their promise at the beginning, but they way they end up both pushing each other to be better and use some clever tricks to slowly work their ways up the leader board is thrilling stuff. It helps that both Pitt and Idris are great, but the supporting work from Bardem and Condon and most of the team builds a lovable family dynamic.

But how are the racing scenes? After all, that’s what everyone is really there to see. They live up to the hype. Even at over two-and-a-half hours long, the runtime flies by because the racing scenes are so well paced and executed with such precision. The realism of seeing people in the cars actually driving them at high speeds with cameras mounted right onto the bodies certainly helps.

And through a combination of editing, a heart-pounding musical score by Hans Zimmer and brilliant sound design that knows when to be loudest and when to let the silence in, these are the “Top Gun” on the racetrack scenes audience had been promised. And having a cast of characters that are easy to root for and a relatable story about redemption, growth and acceptance brings it all together in a tidy summer blockbuster package.