How and Where to Watch F1 Races for Free

F1 races, including practice and qualifying sessions, are hidden behind paywalls in almost every country. Typically, you’ll have to spend around $44.00 per month to access every live race and replays.

These high subscription costs have pushed millions of viewers to use illegal streaming sites, such as f1livestream.top and live1.formula1stream.cc, which are malicious and may infect your device with malware.

For this reason, we thoroughly researched ways to safely watch F1 without Sky Sports, ESPN, or any other paid-for subscription. We found five free F1 streaming sites from four different countries that are completely legal to access.

While these free F1 streaming sites restrict access by checking if your IP address matches the right country, you can work around this using a virtual private network (VPN).

The best VPNs disguise your IP address and bypass websites’ geo-blocks. In our tests, only five VPNs consistently unblocked the best free F1 streaming platforms from abroad.

We’ve used and analyzed over 50 F1 streaming sites from over 30 countries. Only five matched our criteria of being free-to-air, legal, and offering live streams in HD.

However, all of these services are geo-blocked, meaning you can only access them from certain countries. Using a VPN, you can change your IP address and access these platforms from anywhere in the world.

In the table below, you can compare seven popular Formula 1 content platforms:

Streaming Site	Do We Recommend?	IP Address Location	Commentary Language	Race Coverage	Price	Legal Status
RTBF Auvio	Yes	Belgium	French	24 races	100% Free	Legal
ServusTV	Yes	Austria	German	12 races	100% Free	Legal
ORF	Yes	Austria	German	12 races	100% Free	Legal
M4 Sport	Yes	Hungary	Hungarian	24 races	100% Free	Legal
F1TV Pro	Yes	USA	English	24 races	$10.00 per month	Legal
NOW	No	UK	English	24 races	$45.00 per month	Legal
Illegal Websites	No	Anywhere	English	24 races	100% Free	Illegal

1. RTBF Auvio

The best free F1 streaming site, with every race available in Full HD.

Pros	Cons
Broadcasts every F1 race	Not available on Fire TV
1080p streaming quality	No English commentary option
Doesn’t require any payment details	Requires account registration
Intuitive interface
Compatible with many VPN services

RTBF Auvio is the best choice for streaming Formula 1 for free. It shows every F1 race in Full HD, including practice rounds, qualifying races, and the Grand Prix. However, you’ll need an IP address from Belgium in order to access it.

It has a more attractive and user-friendly interface than even the paid-for platforms we tested, like NOW and F1TV Pro. It’s also run and operated by the public broadcaster in Belgium, meaning it’s a totally legitimate and legal service to use.

However, unlike ServusTV and ORF, RTBF Auvio doesn’t have a Fire TV app. We weren’t able to download it on our Firestick, though we used it on our Apple TV, Roku, and LG TV via AirPlay.

2. ServusTV

The best choice for streaming free F1 races on Fire TV.

Pros	Cons
Available on all platforms & devices	Only has 50% of races
No sign up required	Commentary is in German
Modern & intuitive interface
Desktop video player supports AirPlay

ServusTV is a free-to-air service owned by Red Bull. Disappointingly, it only broadcasts half of all F1 races, with ORF showing the other half. You will have to use the services in conjunction to watch every race and both require an Austrian IP address.

Unlike every other 100% free F1 platform, ServusTV is compatible with every streaming device, including Firestick and Apple TV. We discovered that you can even AirPlay content to LG TVs or Apple TV from the desktop video player, which is a feature unique to ServusTV.

The tile interface website and apps are well-designed and feel like a premium service. You can easily find any live F1 race from the home screen and start streaming immediately.

3. ORF TVthek

Basic streaming service that’s compatible with many devices.

Pros	Cons
Apps for Fire TV & Android TV	Doesn’t support 1080p resolution
Doesn’t require any personal details	Outdated and confusing design
	Only broadcasting half of races
	Not available in English

ORF TVthek is a reputable free-to-air streaming website in Austria. It has the rights to the other half of F1 races that ServusTV doesn’t broadcast.

ORF’s website and apps haven’t been updated for a long time, making them difficult to navigate and missing some modern features. For instance, it doesn’t broadcast in 1080p resolution, nor does it provide a shortcut to F1 races from its home screen.

That said, unlike RTBF Auvio and M4 Sport, ORF TVthek has apps for Fire TV and Android TV. Using it alongside ServusTV is the only way to stream every F1 race for free on these devices.

4. M4 Sport

Broadcasts every F1 race through a poorly designed website.

Pros	Cons
Shows every F1 race	Only available on desktop and mobile
Allows you to manually select video resolution	Complex UI
	Hungarian commentary

M4 Sport is the official streaming platform of Hungary’s public TV service. It’s trustworthy and the only other option to watch every race 100% for free if you don’t want to use RTBF Auvio.

However, M4 Sport is the most confusing free F1 streaming site we tested. The website and apps are cluttered, with video feeds mixed with news, on-demand videos, and podcast links. It took over five times longer to find and stream a F1 race on M4 Sport than on any other platform.

More positively, M4 Sport is the only completely free service in this list that allows you to manually choose video resolution. We prefer this as you can force the stream to show in Full HD resolution, rather than rely on it updating the resolution automatically.

5. F1TV Pro

Premium F1 streaming service with a seven-day free trial.

Pros	Cons
Best-in-class commentary and analysis	Only free for 7 days
English commentary	Free trial is only available intermittently
Apps available for every platform	Doesn’t support 4K Ultra HD
Comparatively cheap paid subscriptions	Requires a US payment method

F1TV Pro is an excellent paid-for streaming service that enables you to live stream all F1 races and access on-demand analysis. It’s not available in the UK and some other countries, so you’ll need a VPN to access it.

F1TV Pro is the only F1 streaming website we recommend that has English commentary and punditry. It even allows you to manually choose your commentary feed, allowing you to switch to Sky’s feed of Croft and Brundle.

However, F1TV is held back as it’s not a 100% free service. To access it without paying, you’ll have to take advantage of its seven-day free trial. Even then, this free trial is only available during random times of the year.

Our research found that many popular free Formula 1 streaming sites broadcast unlicensed races, making them illegal. Additionally, some contained malware, which could put your device at risk.

Moreover, all of the premium services we tested charged excessive subscription fees. For these reasons, we strongly recommend using a VPN to access a legally-compliant free or reasonably-priced alternative streaming service.

In this section, we’ll explain in detail why you should avoid two of the most popular alternative F1 streaming sites.

Dubz Network / F1LIVESTREAM.TOP

Dubz Network and F1 Live Stream are associated websites that host unlicensed F1 races for free. Streaming content from these websites is illegal and you should not do it under any circumstances.

We analyzed these websites using VirusTotal’s scanner and found that they contained malicious files, making them a potential source of malware. View the results from our tests in the screenshot below:

The user experience of Dubz Network and F1 Live Stream is also worse than any other website we used. The excessive number of on-page ads makes it difficult to view the website’s content.

Additionally, these platforms struggle to keep up with demand during peak viewing. Though we were able to stream the analysis before the race without an issue, the video would stop and buffer whenever the race started.

NOW (Sky Sports)

NOW is a premium UK-based online streaming service from Sky Sports. It’s legal to use and has the rights for every F1 race, including practice and qualifying, with English commentary and analysis.

NOW has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to access F1 content. The dedicated Sky Sports F1 live channel can be easily found in the sports tab. Unlike many free services, it also has apps for all streaming devices, including Fire TV and Apple TV.

However, we don’t recommend NOW as F1TV Pro is a far better option if you don’t need a 100% free service. Now costs the equivalent of $44.00 per month, which is over four times as expensive as F1TV Pro.

Even with its lower price, F1TV Pro offers higher streaming quality, broadcasting in 1080p resolution compared to NOW’s 720p. It also provides the same level of English commentary and analysis.

Every legal free F1 streaming site is geo-blocked, meaning you need an IP address from a particular country to access it. With a VPN, you can spoof your location to access it from anywhere.

Not every VPN works, though. As VPN services allow users to bypass licensing agreements, many free streaming services attempt to detect and block VPNs.

You can use both of these services for free, either by taking advantage of a refund offer or a completely free subscription plan.

The Best VPNs for Live Streaming Formula 1 Compared

Use the table below to directly compare the two best VPNs for streaming F1 for free:

	ExpressVPN	Proton VPN Free
No. of Free F1 Sites Unblocked	5	1
Type of Free Access	30-day money-back guarantee	100% free
Data Cap	Unlimited bandwidth	Unlimited bandwidth
International Speed (out of 100Mbps)	85Mbps	85Mbps
Simultaneous connections	8	1
Router App	Yes	No
Customer Support	24/7 live chat	Email support

To identify the best VPNs for streaming geo-blocked F1 races, we performed hands-on testing with 62 VPNs and five free F1 streaming sites. ExpressVPN and Proton VPN Free were the only VPNs that met or exceeded our F1 VPN testing criteria.

In the table below, see a selection of other popular VPNs that we analyzed, alongside the reasons they fell short in our evaluations:

VPN Service	Reason for Exclusion
CyberGhost	Doesn’t work with ServusTV, ORF Eins, RTBF Auvio No router app Smart DNS doesn’t work with F1 streaming sites Slow speeds connecting to Mexico
IPVanish	No router app No Smart DNS feature Unintuitive app design
NordVPN	Doesn’t work with RTBF Auvio No router app Smart DNS doesn’t work with F1 streaming sites
PrivadoVPN Free	Doesn’t work with any 100% free F1 streaming site No browser extensions No router app No Smart DNS feature No live chat customer support
Private Internet Access	No router app Smart DNS doesn’t work with F1 streaming sites
Surfshark	Doesn’t work with F1TV Pro No router app Smart DNS doesn’t work with F1 streaming sites
Windscribe Free	Doesn’t work with any 100% free F1 streaming site 10GB monthly data cap No live chat customer support