How to Watch the Belgian Grand Prix 2026

Four countries carry it free-to-air, all verified July 13, 2026. Belgium is the best: RTBF Auvio streams every session free with a free account (Tipik has the race from 14:15 CEST Sunday). Austria's ServusTV and its ServusTV On stream carry the full Spa weekend free. Germany's RTL shows the race and Saturday qualifying free — one of only five rounds it airs in 2026. Luxembourg's RTL Zwee shows the whole season free. All four streams are geo-locked to their home country, so from anywhere else you'd connect a VPN to a Belgian (or Austrian) server first, then open the broadcaster's site. In the UK, free coverage is highlights-only on Channel 4; in the US, practice is free on Apple TV but the race needs a subscription (or its seven-day trial).

Lights out is 15:00 CEST on Sunday 19 July 2026 at Spa-Francorchamps. That's 2pm in the UK, 9am Eastern / 6am Pacific in the US, 6:30pm in India and 11pm AEST in eastern Australia. Qualifying is Saturday 18 July at 16:00 CEST (3pm UK, 10am ET, 7:30pm IST, midnight AEST), with FP1 and FP2 on Friday at 13:30 and 17:00 CEST and FP3 on Saturday at 12:30 CEST. The race is scheduled for 44 laps.

No. The official F1 timetable confirms Spa runs the traditional format in 2026: two practice sessions on Friday 17 July, final practice and qualifying on Saturday 18 July, and the 44-lap Grand Prix on Sunday 19 July. The previous round at Silverstone was a sprint weekend; Spa is not, so there's no extra Friday-evening session to plan around — the only Saturday appointment that matters is qualifying at 16:00 CEST.

Live coverage is exclusively on Sky Sports F1, with race-day build-up from 12:30pm BST on Sunday 19 July and lights out at 2pm. Without a Sky contract, a NOW Day pass or cancel-anytime Month pass streams the same coverage. Channel 4 does not show the Belgian GP live — it carries free highlights, and the only race it airs live and free in 2026 is the British GP. F1 TV Pro is not sold in the UK or Ireland either, because Sky's exclusive deal (extended in May 2026 to run until 2034) blocks it.

Apple TV is the only route in 2026 — Apple holds exclusive US rights and ESPN/ABC no longer carry F1. A subscription is $12.99 a month or $99 a year and includes F1 TV Premium (onboards, team radio, multiview, 4K) at no extra cost; F1 TV can't be bought separately in the US anymore. Practice sessions stream free with just an Apple account, but expect to need the subscription for qualifying and the race — new subscribers currently get a seven-day free trial, which covers the whole Spa weekend. The race starts at 9am ET / 6am PT on Sunday 19 July.

As of July 13, 2026 — after the British Grand Prix — Kimi Antonelli leads the drivers' championship on 179 points, 25 clear of Mercedes teammate George Russell (154), with Lewis Hamilton third on 147 for Ferrari. Charles Leclerc won at Silverstone and sits fourth on 108, ahead of reigning champion Lando Norris on 97. Mercedes leads the constructors' championship on 333 points from Ferrari (255) and McLaren (179). Antonelli's lead shrank at Silverstone after a wheel-shield failure and a time penalty left him outside the points-paying positions he'd normally bank.

Not directly — Auvio checks your IP address and only streams inside Belgium. The workaround is a VPN: connect to a Belgian server (NordVPN, ExpressVPN and Surfshark all have them), then open auvio.rtbf.be, sign into a free account and start the Formule 1 live page. Using a VPN is legal in Belgium, the UK, the US and most countries — it relocates your connection, nothing more — but always review a streaming service's terms and use accounts you own. All three VPNs offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, so covering one race weekend can effectively cost nothing.

F1 TV Pro and F1 TV Premium stream every Spa session live, but only in the selected countries where F1 sells them. Two big exclusions apply in 2026: the United States, where F1 TV Premium is now bundled into an Apple TV subscription instead of sold directly, and the UK and Ireland, where Sky's exclusive rights block it entirely. Most of continental Europe, Latin America, Canada and large parts of Asia can subscribe normally. If you hold a valid F1 TV subscription and are traveling somewhere it isn't sold, connect a VPN to a server in your home country before signing in.