With just days to go until the first race of the season, senior F1 officials have told the BBC that the race will be postponed due to coronavirus. On Thursday 12 March, McLaren announced it was pulling out of the event after team members tested positive for the virus.
It’s unknown when the rescheduled race could take place: the Chinese GP has already been postponed, and the news about the Melbourne GP puts other early races in doubt.
In any case you want to know which TV channels are showing races in 2020. And we have the answer.
Watching F1 races for free is becoming increasingly difficult and – at some point – it will almost certainly become a pay-to-watch sport. However, for now at least, you have the choice of watching on Channel 4 in the UK or paying for the F1 channel on Sky.
How to watch every F1 race for free in the UK
Although Sky has the exclusive rights to show live races in the UK, part of the deal it struck with Bernie Ecclestone before F1 was sold to Liberty Media was that highlights must be available on a free-to-air TV channel that’s widely available.
The deal runs until 2024, but there’s good news for fans because a new arrangement with Sky means that extended highlights of both qualifying and races can be shown on Channel 4 only two and a half hours after the race ends, instead of the three-hour delay in 2019. (They won’t all be shown this soon – the Australian GP highlights will be broadcast on Sunday afternoon.)
This means the whole show will last 2.5 hours instead of 2, and can cover 70 percent of the action. That equates to about an hour of actual racing rather than 45 minutes.
Better still, this agreement extends until the end of 2022.
Also, as before, one race will be shown live on Channel 4: the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on 19 July.
You can watch Channel 4 on your TV, of course, but you can also watch using the All 4 app on your phone or tablet, or in a web browser via Channel 4’s website.
How to watch F1 races on Sky and NowTV
If you’re happy to pay a subscription fee so you can watch entire races live, then Sky is the only option in the UK. While Liberty operates an online streaming service – F1 TV Pro – you can’t watch it in the UK because of Sky’s exclusive deal.
Currently, there’s an offer where you can get Sky Sports F1 for £10 per month (minimum of 12 months), or Complete Sports (all the sports channels) for £20 per month. You’ll have to sign up for an 18-month contract for the latter, though.
There’s no requirement to have Sky TV: you can subscribe via Sky’s streaming service, Now TV. That’s available on your phone, tablet, games consoles, via a web browser and also via a Now TV streaming stick.
And there’s a special deal where you get access to all F1 races via Now TV for £198.
That works out at £9 per race weekend. (After 9 months, the subscription renews at £33.99 per month, so watch out for that.)
When is the Australian Grand Prix start time in the UK?
- TBC; Race postponed. (Original scheduled date Sunday 15 March, 5.10am race start on Sky Sports F1).
If you’re unable to get to a TV or record broadcasts, you can watch them later on Sky and Channel 4’s catch-up services.
Can you get F1 TV Pro in the UK?
Annoyingly, no, you can’t. In case you didn’t know, F1 TV Pro is the official streaming service of Forumla 1 but you can’t get it in the UK because of Sky’s exclusive deal for live races.
F1 TV Pro is only available the US where it costs $79.99 per year. You can also buy it in a few other countries including the Netherlands where it is €7.99 per month.
In the UK, all you can access is the live timing service which costs £2.29 per month. We don’t advise using a VPN to buy the service from the US or Netherlands: it’s likely your VPN will be detected and Liberty Media, which runs F1, says your subscription will be terminated with no refund.
Can I watch F1 online in 2020?
Indeed you can. Coverage is available using the following apps:
Note that you cannot watch live on the All 4 app. Highlights are made available at some point later in the day after the race.
Sky
To watch races on Sky you need to subscribe to its TV service. Sky will be broadcasting practice, qualifying and races in Ultra HD, but they’re also in HD depending upon your subscription. You can find out more on Sky’s website.
Now TV
As we said above, you can still watch Sky Sports F1 without being a Sky customer as the channel is also available on Now TV. This is sky’s streaming service, which you can watch via the Now TV Player app on a laptop, PC, Mac, phone or tablet, or Sky’s own Now TV Stick which connects to an HDMI input on your TV.
Is there really no way to watch F1 races live for free?
Officially, no. But there is a way. And it’s free if you have a satellite dish and receiver which can pick up RTL Germany. That’s because F1 races are still shown there on the free-to-air channel. Unless you’re fluent in German the commentary isn’t going to mean much, but you can get English commentary by tuning into Radio 5 Live (you can use the iPlayer Radio app on your phone if you don’t have an actual radio).
If you haven’t already got a suitable dish and set-top box, there’s little point in investing in one as you’ll pay around the same price to watch F1 on Now TV. But it could work out to be cheaper if you plan to watch F1 for the next few years and RTL continues to broadcast it.
2020 F1 schedule
Here are the dates to put in your diary so you don’t miss any races.
| Australian Grand Prix | Postponed (was 15 March) | Sky, 5.10am |
| Bahrain Grand Prix | 22 March | Sky, 3.10pm |
| Vietman Grand Prix | 5 April | Sky, 8.10am |
| Chinese Grand Prix | Postponed (was 19 April) | Sky, TBC |
| Dutch Grand Prix | 3 May | Sky, 2.10pm |
| Spanish Grand Prix | 10 May | Sky, 2.10pm |
| Monaco Grand Prix | 24 May | Sky, 2.10pm |
| Azerbaijan Grand Prix | 7 June | Sky, 2.10pm |
| Canadian Grand Prix | 14 June | Sky, 7.10pm |
| French Grand Prix | 28 June | Sky, 2.10pm |
| Austrian Grand Prix | 5 July | Sky, 2.10pm |
| British Grand Prix | 19 July | Sky & Channel 4, 3.10pm |
| Hungarian Grand Prix | 2 August | Sky, 2.10pm |
| Belgian Grand Prix | 30 August | Sky, 2.10pm |
| Italian Grand Prix | 6 September | Sky, 2.10pm |
| Singapore Grand Prix | 20 September | Sky, 1.10pm |
| Russian Grand Prix | 27 September | Sky, 12.10pm |
| Japanese Grand Prix | 11 October | Sky, 5.10am |
| United States Grand Prix | 25 October | Sky, 7.10pm |
| Mexican Grand Prix | 1 November | Sky, 7.10pm |
| Brazilian Grand Prix | 15 November | Sky, 5.10pm |
| Abu Dhabi Grand Prix | 29 November | Sky, 1.10pm |
How to watch F1 with a VPN
If you’re not in the UK when a particular race is shown, you can watch it using the Sky Go app on your phone or tablet, but that’s only if you have the right level of subscription in place with Sky. And if you’re not with Sky, then you can still watch highlights on the All 4 app if you use a VPN with a UK server, such as NordVPN, ExpressVPN and Hidden24.
Via Techadvisor