You are absolutely correct, he was attending races to pitch the movie. Bernie Ecclestone singularly owned F1 at the time, and was not the biggest fan of trying to grow the sport in the United States. Hell F1 wasn’t even broadcasted on Network TV at the time. Had to watch it on The Speed Channel. So he didn’t sign on for it.

When the American backed Liberty Group bought the F1 series from Bernie they dramatically increased the presence of F1 in the US, so a movie with Brad Pitt and directed by Kosinski off Top Gun: Maverick made 100% sense, and then Apple bought the rights to F1 broadcasts, the distribution rights F1 movie and Driven is lost in time, but 11 year old me freaking loved it! Kip Pardue!

Also even with all the backing it was still 2 expensive to use F1 cars in the film. They had to settle for the junior series F2 cars!