► How to watch the 2023 F1 season
► Your guide to watching in the UK and beyond
► Our guide to Sky and VPN services
We’ll cut to the chase, if you want to watch any of the Formula One live in the UK this year, you’ll have to choose between paying for Sky – or paying for Sky in the form of Now. Channel 4 will be showing free-to-air highlights of each race but anything else will be locked behind a paywall.
The situation for watching Formula One may have improved compared to just a couple of years ago, but it’s still a potentially huge money pit to navigate. This article is designed to get you through the mire as cheaply and easily as possible.
Watch with Now
Your only option to watch the F1 on Now is to pay for a full Sports Pass (this includes all 11 Sky Sports channels) for £33.99 a month, or £11.98 for 24 hours.
The only issue? It doesn’t have the pinsharp 4K quality you’d get from full-fat Sky – it’s only in 1080p.
To do any of the other above you’ll need a compatible device, the app is available on most Smart TVs, smartphones and game consoles – so chances are you’ll be able to access it with no trouble. To learn more about Now, follow the links below.
Now Month Membership + Boost Free Trial
Now Day + Mobile Month Membership
How to watch F1 abroad
If you’re heading abroad on your holidays, you might be wondering how you’re going to keep up with the latest F1 races and other motorsport events. Thankfully the answer is simple – with a Virtual Private Network, aka, a VPN.
A VPN allows you to stream UK content from abroad. It does this by making a site or streaming service think that you are in a different location. So, when you’re out of the UK, you can use a VPN to connect to a UK server and access UK on-demand and streaming services.
Please note that while legal in most countries, VPNs are illegal in the UAE, Iraq, China and North Korea.
The best VPN for watching F1 abroad
To ensure you can easily access what you want to watch, you need a reputable VPN. The best in the biz has plenty of servers to access, good connection speeds and can readily circumvent geo-blocks.
Like all the best digital services, top VPNs come with easy-to-use apps which allow VPN connections to be made with a tab of the smartphone screen or laptop trackpad.
Express VPN
£5.71 p/m for one year, plus three months free. 30-day money-back guarantee. Other packages are available, including One-month subscriptions are available.
Get the full-fat experience with Sky
Like last year, in the UK at least, Sky has the rights to broadcast every single practice session, qualifying session and race – live in the UK. It’s pretty comprehensive coverage if you can afford it, but to get Sky F1, you’ll need to subscribe to a basic package at least.
There’s an offer on at the moment for Sky Q, setting you back £46 a month over an 18-month contract. This gets you a basic channel package, streaming access and Sky Sports HD, with an installation fee of £20.
It’s the easiest way to watch F1 this year, and the only way to watch it in 4K – but you certainly need to love F1 to splash this amount of cash, You’ll also want a compatible 4K TV to get the most out of it.
Want to get an even closer look?
Be quick, there’s still time to get out to Barcelona (2-4 June) and watch the F1 live in person. We’ve found the cheapest flights, tickets and hotels (that shouldn’t leave you with bed bugs).
That’s not all, we’ve compiled a list of the best flights, hotels and race tickets for the rest of the F1 season right here. We’ve even included the best threads to wear so you can support your favourite team.
Just so you know, whilst we may receive a commission or other compensation from the links on this website, we never allow this to influence product selections – read why you should trust us