Nine races live on the BBC in 2014

2014 F1 season

20th December 2013, 11:105th August 2014, 23:08 | Written by Keith Collantine

Nine of the race on the 2014 F1 calendar will be shown live on free-to-air television in the UK.

The BBC will have live coverage of nine rounds of the nineteen-race season and will show highlights of the remaining rounds. Sky will show live coverage of all the races on its subscription service.

Formula One’s inaugural Russian race will be shown live on the BBC but its return to Austria will not. Here’s a full list of which races will be shown live on which channels in 2014.

Round	Race	Circuit	Date	Channel
1	Australian Grand Prix	Albert Park	March 14 – 16	Sky
2	Malaysian Grand Prix	Sepang International Circuit	March 28 – 30	BBC/Sky
3	Bahrain Grand Prix	Bahrain International Circuit	April 4 – 6	Sky
4	Chinese Grand Prix	Shanghai International Circuit	April 18 – 20	Sky
5	Spanish Grand Prix	Circuit de Catalunya	May 9 – 11	BBC/Sky
6	Monaco Grand Prix	Monte-Carlo	May 22 – 25	Sky
7	Canadian Grand Prix	Circuit Gilles Villeneuve	June 6 – 8	BBC/Sky
8	Austrian Grand Prix	Red Bull Ring	June 20 – 22	Sky
9	British Grand Prix	Silverstone	July 4 – 6	BBC/Sky
10	German Grand Prix	Hockenheimring	July 18 – 20	Sky
11	Hungarian Grand Prix	Hungaroring	July 25 – 27	Sky
12	Belgian Grand Prix	Spa-Francorchamps	August 22 – 24	BBC/Sky
13	Italian Grand Prix	Monza	September 5 – 7	BBC/Sky
14	Singapore Grand Prix	Singapore	September 19 – 21	Sky
15	Japanese Grand Prix	Suzuka	October 3 – 5	BBC/Sky
16	Russian Grand Prix	Sochi	October 10 – 12	BBC/Sky
17	United States Grand Prix	Circuit of the Americas	October 31 – November 2	Sky
18	Brazilian Grand Prix	Interlagos	November 7 – 9	Sky
19	Abu Dhabi Grand Prix	Yas Marina	November 21 – 23	BBC/Sky

2014 F1 season

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64 comments on “Nine races live on the BBC in 2014”

Lucas Wilson (@full-throttle-f1)
20th December 2013, 11:12
That stinks.
1. Umar Majid (@um1234)
  20th December 2013, 11:14
  F1 stinks these days mate
  1. Chris (@tophercheese21)
    20th December 2013, 11:18
    F1 stinks these days mate
    *Murdoch
    1. Tyler (@tdog)
      20th December 2013, 11:26
      It was the BBC which elected to give up its exclusive UK rights. Silly to blame the buyer when it’s the vendor’s decision to sell.
      1. Will
        23rd December 2013, 10:10
        Er, the BBC didn’t “own” exclusive UK rights. It licensed them from FOM… and it elected not to keep buying that license, coincidentally at the time when Murdoch decided he was in the market for the rights and the price was readjusted to whatever he was prepared to throw at it.
2. Retired (@jeff1s)
  20th December 2013, 11:49
  Not a single free-to-air race in France in 2013, ’14, ’15.
  But there is two way to see the problem. Unlike in the UK, the free-to-air broadcasting was poor in France – and it’s an understatement. Had no pre-race show, no post-race show: lights to flag with no less than 5 ads for an hour and a half of racing.
  Now, I pay 20 bucks per month to get Canal+ and 4 other channels of their brand – with series and films – and I get the full coverage with no ad, build-up, forum and etc…
  So, if you’re a big fan of F1, here you have no choice but to pay but if you’re really a big fan you pay for your passion.0
  1. Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
    20th December 2013, 14:48
    @jeff1s more to the point, coming from really the center of F1 in this world, it’s shocking that all the races are not free to air. All the engineers, employees, teams based in the UK… seems daft they let it get away… it should be strategically put ahead, as a concept, to be shown on free-to-air tv to show the country what’s basically being made in the country, despite the austrian, indian or whatever license the teams are using.
    Here in Argentina we have to pay for it and the quality of the product is blindingly horrible. At least the brits get some proper broadcast…
magon4 (@magon4)
20th December 2013, 11:12
Can BBC pick freely?
I would have picked:
Australia instead of Malaysia
Monaco instead of Barcelona
Interlagos instead of Russia
1. Lucas Wilson (@full-throttle-f1)
  20th December 2013, 11:13
  +1
2. Baron (@baron)
  20th December 2013, 11:30
  Obviously, no.
3. Optimaximal (@optimaximal)
  20th December 2013, 11:42
  Both parties get together and decide from the pool in groups of 3. About the only clear rule is that Sky cannot lock out 3 consecutive live races, nor can the BBC pick 3 consecutive live events.
  The BBC gets the first pick and is seemingly contractually obliged to pick Silverstone (for obvious reasons) and the final race. They also tend to gravitate towards events in the Euro or US time zones because of better prime-time viewing figures.
  The BBC saw dreadful viewing figures for Canada and Austin in 2012 because the requirement to time-shift the highlights by 5 hours put them late at night (hence getting Canada live for 2013 seemed to be a priority). They also like Spa, because it gets them back on TV for a popular race after the summer break.
  They also chose to drop Monaco for 2013 because the 2012 race was dreadful (not that 2013 was better). Sky subsequently leapt on it, along with Austin and Singapore, which are all fairly high-profile events on the calendar at the moment.
4. cjpdk (@cjpdk)
  20th December 2013, 11:43
  @magon4 I imagine not, otherwise Sky wouldn’t really have any jewels with which to promote their coverage
5. Jeanrien (@jeanrien)
  20th December 2013, 11:45
  @magon4 They choose at turn (3 races each), BBC Start, then Sky locks 3 races and so on …
mrferraricz
20th December 2013, 11:15
Sad, **** sky…
Force Maikel (@force-maikel)
20th December 2013, 11:18
This ****** stinks man, the local broadcast here in Belgium has decided to stop F1, RTL in Germany has suddenly died on me and now the BBC decided to do one less.
Swell…
1. Gecko
  18th March 2014, 14:29
  You can always watch it in French on the RTBF, it doesn’t matter if you speak french or not because the commentary is rubbish. The man can’t stop talking and almost only says what you can see on the screen.
  Still, it’s free, and in HD
Craig Woollard (@craig-o)
20th December 2013, 11:25
No Monaco, that surprises me…
Malaysia, woo.
Nope, I’m not getting Sky.
1. Baron (@baron)
  20th December 2013, 11:31
  Roger that. Sky only when Hell hath frozen.
2. Optimaximal (@optimaximal)
  20th December 2013, 11:43
  They didn’t have Monaco live this year. It was dropped due to the race itself generally being pretty lacklustre.
  1. hunocsi (@hunocsi)
    20th December 2013, 14:47
    And I think the costs of Monaco are the highest.
    1. Optimaximal (@optimaximal)
      20th December 2013, 16:08
      The costs to the broadcasters don’t fall into it. The BBC and Sky both pay fees for races across the season.
      There are ancillary costs, like the cost of sending personnel etc, but the BBC are already sending their 5Live team and send most of the TV crew to events anyway.
  2. bsnaylor (@bsnaylor)
    20th December 2013, 17:24
    I don’t get this pathetic attitude towards Sky as a whole.
    Fair enough if you can’t afford it, but to shun it for principle seems silly. (and what principle?)
    Sky is a great platform not only for sport, but for broadband, on demand, catchup, etc etc
    The Sky F1 coverage and team is far superior to anything the BBC did, and quite frankly puts the current BBC coverage to shame.
    1. Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
      20th December 2013, 22:19
      @bsnaylor it’s expensive but the product is definitely worthwhile. I do however think they should make just the F1 channel available for a quarter of the cost of the full sports package (so as to not reduce their profits too much, if that’s what they are after).
      I believe that would amount to just over £5/month over-and-above any normal fees which is pretty reasonable for the quality of coverage (the lowest standard subscription fee I believe is £21.50/month, so that would be a total of around £27/month for F1 HD and more).
    2. Guest
      8th March 2014, 11:29
      Sky broadband is crap.
James (@jamesjames123abc)
20th December 2013, 11:39
I’m happy that Malaysia will be shown live, not so keen on Russia. I guess there’s some rule about Sky having a maximum of 2 consecutive races exclusive. At least we all get the chance to see the ‘most important’ race of the season…
1. Optimaximal (@optimaximal)
  20th December 2013, 11:48
  See my above post…
AdrianMorse (@adrianmorse)
20th December 2013, 11:43
Nine races is just not enough, and why does “half the races” have to rounded down? How can anyone serious about the sport see only four races live of the first 11? Of course there will be highlights, but then one can just as well read the race reports on F1Fanatic. I hope RTL Germany will continue to broadcast F1 next season, so at least I’ll be able to follow the races live, without having to resort to the flea-infested corners of the internet where illegal streams reside.
1. Optimaximal (@optimaximal)
  20th December 2013, 11:44
  You can never fairly divide an odd number evenly. Sky are paying more money, so get the preference.
2. michaeldobson13 (@michaeldobson13)
  20th December 2013, 13:06
  Remember, Abu Dhabi counts as two races
  1. Oople
    20th December 2013, 15:17
    lol. I like this.
    It’s not 50% of the races, it’s 50% of the points :P
Meander (@meander)
20th December 2013, 11:50
Darn it. Watching Australia and Monaco in German next year, with 5 minute ad breaks… :(
1. Jason Norwood
  20th December 2013, 12:00
  Surley some of your friends have sky sports. Just ask to borrow there sky go password and you can watch the race live on the internet with a good picture. I bought a HDMI cable and have it playing through my tv from my laptop. And i dont notice any real difference to SD quality pictures that I grew up watching.
  1. William (@william)
    23rd December 2013, 12:46
    I can access Sky Sports F1 live stream when even though I am in Australia go to Wiziwig.tv
Colin
20th December 2013, 11:57
Oh well XBMC to the fore, what a lousy selection by the BBC.
Rigi (@rigi)
20th December 2013, 12:01
ah, i’m glad i don’t have to worry about this.
living in switzerland, i could either watch the swiss (which is my second choice), the austrian (best one there is, great commentators) or the german broadcast (the only thing they ever talk about is vettel, vettel, vettel and vettel, so i would rather watch a livestream of sky on the internet)
they all broadcast every race of the season live, so i guess i can call myself lucky to live here and not the uk ;)
1. alexander
  20th December 2013, 12:18
  i wish they picked melbourne comon it doesnt matter if its on at 5.am its still the first race of season. and also annoyed that they chose abu dhabi over brazil(thats means another midnight highlights program along with usa).
  i also hope the bbc have a rethink about the length of the highlights shows it should be like this:
  fridays: practise highlights or review show(mabey half an hour of inside f1 on bbc2)
  quali show should be 1hr 30min every non live weekend(instead of 1hr and 10min)
  race show should be 2hrs every non live race not just the fly always.
  if they dont do that then ill just watch a sky f1 stream with r5l commentary on non live weekends.
jre_f1 (@jre_f1)
20th December 2013, 12:08
Paid out for Sky this year but still watched the BBC when the option was available.
Why??!
I just cannot stand David Croft, he’s completely hopeless, James Allen used to grate me a bit but at least he knew his stuff and could not confuse a white Sauber and a Blue Williams. They need to find somebody better than him, or let Brundle do it solo, he was a good lead commentator in 2011!
1. Neel Jani (@neelv27)
  20th December 2013, 12:41
  @jre_f1 In that case you’re still lucky.
  From this year, the F1 broadcasters in India have tied up with Sky so we get Croft and MB and trust me, Croft sounds like the God from the heavens as earlier we had a guy named Steve Slater who was the devil.
  If Croft can mistake a white Sauber for a Blue Williams the here is how Slater went,
  1. Williams of Pastor Maldonado for Nico Rosberg from Mercedes
  2. (2008 Brazil) While Martin Brundle and James Allen knew all along that Timo Glock was losing time every sector to Lewis Hamilton (remember Hamilton had to overtake Glock at the last lap to win the championship) and that a pass was expected, poor ol’ Steve had no clue why Lewis finished in 5th and why Glock was so slow. He was screaming “Massa has won the WDC” all over the place while James Allen immediately was able to point out that Glock was on Slicks so he was losing 3 seconds per sector. I thought for a long time after the race that Glock slowed on purpose when infact he was going as fast as he could!
  3. The mother of all – He said during the 2011 Canadian GP, “Michael Schumacher, the rain master going superbly. The 2010 World Champion is charging towards his young compatriot (Vettel)”
2. Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
  20th December 2013, 22:22
  I like Crofty: I think he always brings excitement to the races and he’s rarely boring, which I can’t say for Coulthard.
Paul (@frankjaeger)
20th December 2013, 12:14
Definitely should of had German + Brazilian grand prixs instead of Spanish + Russian, and gifted us Monaco . Either way I torrent them afterwards for non-BBC covered races :)
1. Canderous (@yoshif8tures)
  20th December 2013, 12:36
  I often torrent it, watch later and try to avoid spoiling.
Diceman (@diceman)
20th December 2013, 12:51
9 races is better than nothing, in Finland we see zero races for free.
1. Ivan (@wpinrui)
  20th December 2013, 14:18
  In Singapore we get one race (guess which one?), and then they add ads into the coverage, just randomly cutting it in many places in between and switching to an ad.
  1. David not Coulthard (@)
    20th December 2013, 17:23
    @wpinrui
    They show ads even if you go straight to Marina Bay (I mean, Marina Bay can’t be far from any spot in Singapore, right?)? :p
David not Coulthard (@)
20th December 2013, 17:20
The situation in Indonesia is a bit funny: We get free-to-air races on Kompas TV (which uses a workaround around the law in order to broadcast the channel nationally) with some ads, and a short, and somewhat bad (rather close to being, if not actually, rubbish). And yet the paid option, the cheapest of which (which is the one I’ve got) basically the non-HD version of the channel from which Kompas TV (which doesn’t air in HD, at least in its default option) gets its browadcast (which is owned by Murdoch , I think, so its been taking Sky’s broadcast starting this year, replacing Steve Slater and Karun Chandok/ Alex Yoong). On Sundays the 2 options are more or less identical (commentary, ad periods, though Kompas TV shows its own ads), apart from the fact that one of Kompas TV’s ads is prolonged by a short news programme (and the fact that the one other than Kompas TV costs some money). Kompas TV, though, doesn’t show anything else, so FPs and qualies and those extra few minutes in the races are all I get from the paid option apart from what I get in the free option.
In the BBC era of British broadcasting, (what I think are) Murdoch’s channels (Star Sports, sometimes switched to ESPN, which has since been renamed here to Fox Sports, the HD variant of which being what would’ve been needed to watch an HD race here today) had a Different commentary (the aforementioned Slater/Chandok-or-Yoong)and ad times to the Indonesian F1 broadcaster at that time, Global TV, which took their broadcast (and therefore commentary) from The BBC, + echoes (for some reason) to the team radios and had their own ad times (making me switch between the 2 channels during races). Global TV also showed everything, as long as it was Sunday’s race.
Ciaran (@ciaran)
20th December 2013, 18:08
The Brits still don’t know how well they have it. Here in Ireland we haven’t had proper coverage since… 2004 I think? I can’t even remember if it was actually any good or not.
1. Spawinte (@spawinte)
  20th December 2013, 18:47
  RTE had it for a while but it was just a couple of commentators sitting in an Irish studio commentating on a live feed. Being close to the border I was able to watch BBC/ITV.
timi (@timi)
20th December 2013, 18:30
Some of these comments are a bit extreme. Sure 9 races isn’t great, and due to Abu Dhabi being the season finale, that has to be one of the 9.. But come on. What do you people want?
Colour TV License – £145.50 that is INCREDIBLE. Averages at just over £12 a month, and that funds BBC TV and BBC Radio. I don’t know about you, but between BBC News, Mock the Week, Top Gear, Total Wipeout, Panomara, Match of the Day I’m pretty damn pleased with what costs just £145.50 a year.
It’s almost laughable how people think they’re entitled to free race coverage. It’s a capitalist world guys…
Forget our national budget cuts which greatly effect non-essential departments (Hello, BBS), job cuts etc.
Forget all that, I want more free races and I want them now. I ask you take a second to think about the world. F1 is not some cushioned bubble. It is affected by things, and the economy is one of them! Give the BBC a break
1. Ciaran (@ciaran)
  20th December 2013, 21:54
  “It’s almost laughable how people think they’re entitled to free race coverage.”
  About time someone said this. I honestly can’t believe how much people can complain about the sheer indignity of only getting half of a privately-owned sport live, and the other half as deferred coverage for free (ignoring the TV license). Maybe this is harsh, but just because someone is passionate about F1 doesn’t entitle them to getting coverage for free – if they want it they should pay for it. I’d be perfectly happy to pay for an official F1 streaming service if such a system existed.
  1. Francisco (@fjvi)
    21st December 2013, 3:59
    Have you wondered why there is no such a thing as formula one channel? there would not be enough takers to support it on cable form anyway (and moto gp will agree that not by internet either) Yet there are soccer channels all over the world, and growing, any other offer that comes to you is more welcome that one you have to go and get, as the accessibility decreases, so will the number of viewers, inevitable. The future of f1 is not secured by subscriptions, but by sponsors, sponsors need vast amounts of viewers, when it comes down to numbers, there are not enough formula one fanatics in the world to support the sport, and world economy keeps going down. I would compare it with horse racing, where real connoisseurs have the means to watch, gamble and travel, but then again, how many of them are there? you have to reach for the most viewers you can get, before they find something else, even technical minds are wondering to other sources of interest, the more you know about numbers statistics and engineering the harder it is to deny, that budget dictates results, not drivers by themselves on race day.
Spawinte (@spawinte)
20th December 2013, 18:50
Will be watching the whole season on illegal streams next year. Still no streaming offer from FOM despite sports like Major League Baseball and NFL having it for years.
Strontium (@strontium)
20th December 2013, 19:00
Annoyed that the licence payers get a worse deal if there are an odd number of races. So typical :'(
But the races the BBC have are all of the better ones this year thankfully, other than Brazil, but I blame the calendar for that one, rather than the BBC / $ky
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
20th December 2013, 19:20
I think it would be better if Sky just produced the highlights and showed them on their free channel, “Pick”.
They’ve started doing that with the cricket, a summary of the day’s action that’s been shown on Sky Sports earlier, and it’s a great, no-nonsense highlights show, with much more action per hour than previous free-broadcaster Channel 5 ever had.
I’d prefer that approach to the BBC F1 highlight shows with their stupid montages, unnecessary build-up and wooden scripted links.
The decent interviewers and commentators are still spread between the channels in my opinion, and neither presenter is good enough, but that won’t be solved until someone gets exclusive rights.
ACx
20th December 2013, 19:47
What a great promotion for so called illegal downloading and streaming.
Last two seasons I had Sky F1. After this season, I cancelled it. And that was before the insane rule changes recently announced. F1 is no longer something I must watch live, and Sky simply does not offer anything I want to pay extra, over and above the UK TV licence fee, for.
From DRS to Vettel getting unchallenged praise for Newey’s genius car, F1 has become little more than TOWIE with wheels to me. In fact, at least TOWIE in creating some faked up drama.
Yeah, I’ll follow F1, but for the first time in 25 odd years, I actually dont care like I used to. F1 is now a side show, rather than an essential part of my life.
Im now a lot more excited about Formula E. Heh, I even found bloody NASCAR more engaging this year. How the hell did that happen?
1. Timothy Katz (@timothykatz)
  20th December 2013, 20:20
  Okay, I’ll go for it. What’s TOWIE?
  I watch absolutely no mainstream, popular telly, so I’m going to be slammed for not knowing the abbreviation for a highly visible popular tv show . . . I’m ready.
  1. Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
    20th December 2013, 22:28
    @timothykatz, to summarise, horse ****.
Chalky (@chalky)
20th December 2013, 23:01
Look on the bright side. They have Abu Dhabi and that’s double points, so really it’s 10 races…..
(sarcasm)
With the BBC not running every race in full (even delayed) I significantly watched less F1 this year. That’s by my choice, not because they showed less. It was just too odd trying to get into race highlights. The races with little overtaking had no suspense and those with plenty got too confusing to follow who was were. I didn’t even watch the last 3 races, live or not. Not even the highlights, as my interest of on and off live races had sapped my enthusiasm. I haven’t done that for years.
But now with the crazy double points rule and less than 50% of races in full for me to watch, I may start to miss some during the main season too.
PMccarthy_is_a_legend (@pmccarthy_is_a_legend)
21st December 2013, 0:00
No Brazil or Monaco on the BBC! What a joke. I am not paying for a subscription though, will watch Moto GP on BT sport I got for free from my broadband subscription. Better racing, no BS!
William (@william)
21st December 2013, 2:48
Apparently in Australia Ten have signed V8 deal from 2015 alongside MotoGP and F1. The V8 deal is a sad day for motorsport as it will be like BBC/Sky TV deal. James Warburton the CEO isn’t revealing anything till the 2015 V8 calendar has been announced. All I know is that MotoGP runs out at the end of next season while Formula 1 runs out after the 2015 season and no other broadcast wants either of them. Ten is the ‘home of motorsport’ in Australia.
Dennis Kwok
21st December 2013, 19:45
I’m concerned less about what races are going to be live etc. but more corcerned if the BBC are going to keep Suzy Perry as the main presenter. She’s absolutely hopeless and that’s being kind. What’s unforgivable, is that she actually got worse as the season went on. It got so bad, that I had to stick her on mute everytime she was talking during a live broadcast and deliberately used to watch the highlights delayed by twenty mins, just so I could fast forward through the her bits. It’s excruciating seeing her struggle so out of her depth.
1. PMccarthy_is_a_legend (@pmccarthy_is_a_legend)
  25th December 2013, 2:26
  Yeah man she isnt great I agree with that. But she is no worse than David “monotone” Coulthard.
2. Gav
  19th February 2014, 13:46
  Christian Horner always seems to find Suzi Perry interesting ;-)
  She could talk to me about the water in wallpaper paste evaporating as the paper sticks to the wall, and would have my undivided attention :-)
Philip Keehn
17th February 2014, 8:56
I don’t think its fair to F1 fans who can’t afford sky etc..the programme used to be great on BBC when they showed all F1 races. they show full coverage of other sports so why not F1
Adam
9th May 2014, 7:54
As a child neither of my parents were f1 fans but I was able to find f1 on TV (free to air) and watch it. If it ends up all pay per view how will the next generation find the sport unless a parent is paying?

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2014 F1 season

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Keith Collantine

64 comments on “Nine races live on the BBC in 2014”