Formula 1 has a new home in the United States, and it’s one you probably already have on your TV. Starting this weekend, every single race, qualifying session, practice run, and Sprint of the 2026 FIA Formula One World Championship will stream exclusively on Apple TV in the U.S. — no cable package, no ESPN subscription, just $12.99 a month (or free for seven days if you’ve never tried it). The season kicks off with the Formula 1 Qatar Airways Australian Grand Prix 2026, live from Melbourne’s Albert Park, airing on Saturday, March 7, at 8 pm PT.

This is a genuinely massive shift in how American fans consume the sport. For years, ESPN was the home of F1 in the U.S., and the network did a remarkable job growing the audience. By the end of 2025, F1 on ESPN was averaging 1.3 million viewers per race across the season — an all-time record for the sport in the country, and a staggering 135% increase compared to ESPN’s first season back covering the sport. Sixteen of the 24 races in 2025 set individual viewership records. The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, a three-way title showdown, peaked at 1.8 million viewers. The sport was, quite simply, on fire. And that’s exactly the moment Apple chose to move in.​

The deal between Apple and Formula 1 was announced back in October 2025, and the numbers involved are eye-watering. Apple is paying roughly $150 million per year for five years — a total deal worth somewhere in the region of $750 million — to become the exclusive U.S. broadcaster for the sport through 2030. For context, ESPN was paying around $80 million annually. Apple has more than doubled that figure, a clear signal of how seriously the company views live sports as a driver for Apple TV subscriptions. The deal effectively transfers the most-watched motorsport on the planet in America onto a subscription streaming service for the first time, replacing linear broadcast TV as the default destination.​

It’s also impossible to ignore the cultural groundwork Apple laid before inking this agreement. The “F1” movie, starring Brad Pitt and produced by Apple, became the highest-grossing sports film in cinema history, pulling in around $630 million at the global box office. The film didn’t just entertain — it introduced a whole new wave of casual viewers to the sport, the paddock drama, and the personalities behind the helmets. Apple essentially ran a $200 million-plus marketing campaign disguised as a blockbuster, then turned around and bought the broadcasting rights to the very thing it was promoting. In hindsight, it looks like a masterclass in vertical integration.

Now comes the hard part: making people actually tune in on a streaming platform rather than flipping to a familiar cable channel. Apple’s answer, at least judging by what it has prepared for launch weekend, is to make the viewing experience so technically impressive and feature-rich that it becomes worth seeking out. For starters, F1 races will be broadcast in 4K with Dolby Vision and 5.1 surround sound on Apple TV — something that has never been available to F1 viewers in the U.S. before. The sport has always looked spectacular on screen, but watching modern Formula 1 machinery in full 4K HDR, with the growl of hybrid power units pushed through a proper surround sound setup, is genuinely different from watching on a standard cable stream.​

Beyond raw picture quality, Apple is rolling out a Multiview feature that lets subscribers watch up to four live feeds simultaneously — something sports broadcasters have tried to crack for years with mixed results. Viewers can choose from a pre-configured team-specific layout with one tap, or build their own custom Multiview from scratch. On top of that, coverage includes English and Spanish commentary, Driver Tracker giving a bird’s-eye view of the field, real-time telemetry and timing data, a mixed onboard feed that switches between drivers automatically, and dedicated Podium feeds that follow whoever is running in first, second, and third at any given moment. If you’ve ever used F1’s own direct-to-consumer product, F1 TV Premium, you’ll recognize a lot of this — and the good news is that F1 TV Premium is included at no extra cost for Apple TV subscribers in the U.S. Sky Sports’ broadcast feed is also available as an alternative for any race, which is a meaningful addition given Sky’s long-running, deeply respected F1 production team.

The Apple TV F1 experience also doesn’t stop at the TV screen. The free Apple Sports app for iPhone is getting full Formula 1 integration, with real-time leaderboards, driver and constructor standings, and live updates for every session. Live Activities push race updates directly to the iPhone Lock Screen and Apple Watch, meaning you can glance at your wrist and know exactly what’s happening on track without unlocking your phone. Apple Maps is adding detailed, custom circuit maps with turn numbers, grandstands, and 3D landmarks for select races, including this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix. Apple Music is carrying free live audio broadcasts of the races — useful if you’re commuting during a session — alongside driver-curated playlists and an exclusive sit-down interview with four-time champion Max Verstappen recorded with Apple Music Radio host Ebro Darden. Apple Podcasts is hosting a dedicated Formula 1 collection featuring the official F1 Nation and Beyond The Grid shows. The integration across Apple’s ecosystem is thorough to a degree that no broadcaster has really attempted before.​

There’s also the Netflix angle, which is genuinely interesting. Drive to Survive — the documentary series that is almost single-handedly credited with turning a generation of Americans into Formula 1 fans — is coming to Apple TV for the first time. Season 8, covering the drama-soaked 2025 season, will be available to stream on both Netflix and Apple TV simultaneously. This is a reciprocal content-sharing arrangement, and it means that whoever you subscribe to, you get access to the show that likely got you into the sport in the first place. Additionally, the Canadian Grand Prix in May will stream on both Apple TV and Netflix in the U.S. Two of the biggest streaming services in the world cross-pollinating their F1 content is, to put it mildly, not something anyone predicted a couple of years ago.

Apple has also been thoughtful about reaching fans who aren’t already Apple TV subscribers, or who consume content differently. A deal with Tubi — the free, ad-supported streaming service — will bring exclusive live F1 “altcasts” for multiple races, featuring creators and commentators known more for personality than traditional broadcasting. Yahoo Sports, with over 100 million monthly active users in the U.S., will stream live practice and qualifying sessions. Univision will simulcast one race with Spanish-language programming for Hispanic audiences. Perhaps most unexpectedly, IMAX theaters across the U.S. will show five Grands Prix — Miami, Monaco, Silverstone, Monza, and Austin — on the big screen, at a minimum of 50 IMAX locations nationwide. Watching a Formula 1 race on an IMAX screen, with IMAX sound, is the kind of experience that sounds genuinely extraordinary.​

And the timing couldn’t be better, because the 2026 season represents a watershed moment for Formula 1 on the technical side, too. The cars themselves have been redesigned substantially for this year. New aerodynamic regulations bring slimmer, lighter machines — around 30 kilograms lighter than their predecessors — with active aerodynamics that can adjust downforce automatically depending on the situation, opening up for more overtaking potential on long straights. But the most profound change is under the hood. The 2026 power units shift to a roughly 50-50 split between internal combustion and electrical power. The old 1.6-litre turbocharged V6 retains its basic architecture, but the combustion output has been reduced while the electrical motor has been made nearly three times more powerful — jumping from 120kW to 350kW. The complex MGU-H heat recovery system, which contributed to the reliability headaches and enormous development costs of the previous generation, has been scrapped entirely, replaced by a more powerful MGU-K.

This technical reset has attracted an impressive list of new and returning engine suppliers. Red Bull Powertrains, partnering with Ford, is entering as a power unit manufacturer for the first time. Audi is joining the grid as both a constructor and engine supplier. Honda, which appeared to be walking away from the sport, came back to the table when the new rules were confirmed. Ferrari and Mercedes remain. The arrival of Ford and Audi — two of the most storied automotive brands in the world — adds a layer of prestige and corporate investment that the sport hasn’t seen in years.​

That broader commercial energy around Formula 1 is very much the backdrop to Apple’s investment. The U.S. fanbase now stands at around 52 million people, up 11% year-on-year according to F1’s own 2025 season review. The U.S. is the largest market for F1 on YouTube globally, generating 171 million video views in 2025. There are now three American Grands Prix — Miami, Austin, and Las Vegas — with Las Vegas having rapidly established itself as one of the marquee events on the calendar. The infrastructure for a deeply invested American F1 fanbase is already there. Apple is now betting, to the tune of $750 million over five years, that it can bring those fans together under one streaming roof and give them the best version of the sport they’ve ever seen.

Whether Apple can make that work — converting the channel-flipping habits of millions of cable viewers into committed Apple TV subscribers — remains to be seen. The concern that critics have raised consistently since the deal was announced is one of accessibility. F1’s rise in America was partly built on the fact that ESPN is nearly ubiquitous in U.S. households. Apple TV, despite its wide device compatibility (iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K, smart TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony, Vizio, and TCL, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, PlayStation, Xbox, and the web at tv.apple.com), still requires a deliberate subscription decision that cable TV does not. The free trial, the new device promotion offering three free months for recent Apple hardware purchases, and the partnerships with Tubi, Yahoo Sports, and Univision all suggest Apple is acutely aware of this friction and is working to minimize it.​

What is clear right now, on the eve of the Australian Grand Prix, is that Formula 1 in America is entering a genuinely new chapter. New cars, new engines, new teams, new manufacturers, and now a new broadcaster — one that has staked nearly a billion dollars on the belief that the sport’s U.S. momentum has room to run for many years yet. If you want to watch it all unfold, you know where to go.