Driven - Plot

Plot

Mid-season, rookie driver Jimmy Bly has already won 5 races. His brother/business manager Demille is seen to be more concerned with working out endorsement deals and press engagements than racing, putting tremendous pressure upon Jimmy. His winning is also angering former champion Beau Brandenburg who decides he's not doing very well this year because of his fiancée Sophia. He breaks up the engagement and he immediately starts winning again.

As Brandenburg returns to form, Bly's wheelchair-using team owner Carl Henry is concerned that Bly is becoming more prone to driving errors. He sees parallels to his former driver Joe Tanto, who he convinces to come out of retirement to mentor Jimmy. Joe agrees and is brought in to replace Jimmy's teammate, Memo Moreno. To complicate matters, Joe's ex-wife Cathy Heguy is now married to Memo, the driver that Joe replaced. Despite all this, Joe and Memo are still friends.

Joe's comeback race is extremely close, with Jimmy leading and Brandenburg a close second. Jimmy can't seem to pull away from him so Carl orders Joe to pit and holds him there until the leaders are about to come by. At the last second, Joe leaves the pit just in time to block out Brandenburg, allowing Jimmy to win the race. However, Jimmy's brother/manager takes a dislike to Joe's mentoring and tries to break their contact. Meanwhile, Joe urges Brandenburg not to break off his relationship with Sophia because she is beginning to get illegally involved with Jimmy and causing him to lose focus on race day.

At a party in Chicago, where the prototypes of next year's cars are being introduced, Brandenburg gives Sophia her ring back and they are together again, much to Jimmy's disappointment. Sophia apologizes to Jimmy, but he is so upset that he takes one of the new cars and races it out of the convention center. Joe hops into another of the new cars and chases him down the streets of Chicago, eventually forgiving each other after they stop driving. As Jimmy and Joe bond, Carl decides that bringing back Joe isn't successful, so he reinstates original driver Moreno.

The next race is a road course in Germany and it's another close one with Jimmy and Brandenburg fighting it out for first. Bly needs one more win to take the championship, and so Moreno is instructed to protect Bly's race. Cathy gets on the radio and convinces Memo to ignore those instructions, and, as a result, he collides with Bly in a horrific crash that sends him flying through the air and crashing into a lake on the far end of the course. Jimmy does a quick u-turn and drives his car to the lake and dives in after him. Brandenburg does the same and the two of them rescue Memo.

Carl, angered by Jimmy's decision to stop and rescue Moreno instead of fighting on for the championship, decides to replace Jimmy with Brandenburg for the next season and negotiates a deal with Jimmy's brother who will now represent Brandenburg. Demille tries to get Brandenburg to sign the new contract but he rips it up and Sophia punches Demille in the face for the way he treated her previously. With Memo now hospitalized, Joe is racing again as Jimmy's teammate. It looked like Jimmy wouldn't be able to race due to an ankle injury but Carl finally decides to clear him for the race.

At the final race of the year in Detroit, Jimmy and Brandenburg are contenders for the championship. In the final laps, Joe has taken the lead but by avoiding an accident, goes flying through the air, landing safely but damaging his axle. He can't block for Jimmy now and the two leaders pass him on the final lap. It's neck and neck coming down to the finish. Jimmy is starting to have a mental lapse, but then he hears Joe's words of wisdom and in a long slow motion sequence, we see Jimmy beating Brandenburg by just a few inches as Joe crosses in third while doing doughnuts in his now out of control car. Jimmy is the new champion and he, Tanto and Brandenburg, celebrate together on the podium drinking champagne.