The 2017 Formula One season moves onto Shanghai for round two of the championship in China, as fans hope for the battle between Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel to continue.
The Chinese round of the season switches with Bahrain, which follows the next weekend. Coverage from China will be broadcast exclusively live on Sky Sports, with highlights on Channel 4 later in the day. Readers may have noticed that, compared to last year, Channel 4’s highlights are slightly longer in length but are also being broadcast in a later time slot than 2016.
Over on BT Sport, their MotoGP coverage from Argentina is headed up by Craig Doyle for his first round of the 2017 season. In terms of returning championships, the World Touring Car Championship is back this weekend, live on Eurosport 2 from Morocco. Eurosport are also broadcasting the MAC3 time trial this season, which I do not believe was broadcast last year. Eurosport have split qualifying and the MAC3 time trial into two separate slots on the EPG (thanks Alex in the comments for the correction).
A noticeable omission in the schedule below is the Virgin Australia Supercars series. The series was broadcast live on BT Sport last season, but the arrangement appears to have stopped with Motorsport.tv taking over from the start of 2017. Unfortunately, it looks like that Motorsport.tv will not be airing the series live for the next few rounds at least, hence why it does not feature below.
Channel 4 F1
Sessions
08/04 – 13:00 to 14:30 – Qualifying Highlights
09/04 – 14:30 to 16:45 – Race Highlights
Sky Sports F1
Sessions
07/04 – 02:45 to 05:05 – Practice 1 (also on Sky Sports 1)
07/04 – 06:45 to 08:55 – Practice 2 (also on Sky Sports 1)
08/04 – 04:45 to 06:10 – Practice 3 (also on Sky Sports 1)
08/04 – 07:00 to 09:40 – Qualifying
09/04 – 05:30 to 10:10 – Race
=> 05:30 – Track Parade
=> 06:00 – Pit Lane Live
=> 06:30 – Race
=> 09:30 – Paddock Live
Supplementary Programming
05/04 – 20:30 to 21:00 – F1 Report: Preview
06/04 – 08:00 to 09:00 – Driver Press Conference
06/04 – 20:45 to 21:00 – Paddock Uncut
07/04 – 09:00 to 09:30 – Team Press Conference (also on Sky Sports 1)
07/04 – 09:30 to 10:00 – The F1 Show (also on Sky Sports 1)
BBC Radio F1
06/04 – 20:00 to 21:00 – Preview (BBC Radio 5 Live)
07/04 – 02:55 to 04:35 – Practice 1 (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
07/04 – 06:55 to 08:35 – Practice 2 (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
08/04 – 04:55 to 06:05 – Practice 3 (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
08/04 – 06:55 to 08:05 – Qualifying (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
09/04 – 06:30 to 09:00 – Race (BBC Radio 5 Live)
IndyCar Series – Long Beach (BT Sport//ESPN)
09/04 – 21:30 to 00:00 – Race
MotoGP – Argentina (BT Sport 2)
07/04 – 13:00 to 20:00
=> 13:00 – Practice 1
=> 15:45 – Reaction and Build-Up
=> 17:00 – Practice 2
08/04 – 13:00 to 20:15
=> 13:00 – Practice 3
=> 16:00 – Qualifying
09/04 – 13:30 to 15:15 – Warm Up
09/04 – 16:30 to 22:00
=> 16:30 – Moto3 race
=> 18:15 – Moto2 race
=> 19:45 – MotoGP race
=> 21:00 – Chequered Flag
MotoGP – Argentina (Channel 5)
10/04 – 19:00 to 20:00 – Highlights
World Rally Championship – France
07/04 – Day 1 Highlights
=> 22:30 to 23:00 (BT Sport 1)
=> 22:35 to 23:05 (Motorsport.tv)
08/04 – 15:00 to 16:00 – Stage 1 (BT Sport//ESPN)
08/04 – Day 2 Highlights
=> 22:00 to 22:30 (BT Sport 3)
=> 23:05 to 23:35 (Motorsport.tv)
09/04 – 11:00 to 12:30 – Power Stage (BT Sport 1)
09/04 – Day 3 Highlights
=> 22:00 to 22:30 (BT Sport 2)
=> 22:35 to 23:05 (Motorsport.tv)
11/04 – 19:00 to 20:00 – Highlights (Channel 5)
World Touring Car Championship – Morocco (British Eurosport 2)
08/04 – 15:15 to 17:30
=> 15:15 – Qualifying
=> 16:30 – MAC3 time trial
09/04 – 16:30 to 18:30
=> 16:30 – Race 1
=> 17:30 – Race 2
As always, I will update the above schedule if anything changes.
Motorsport Broadcasting 
Are the later schedules for C4 the reason why they’ve been “allowed” to extend the show lengths compared to last year? (i.e. you can show more of the race, but you have to put it on later in the day).
Just a thought.
The WRC is also shown on Red Bull TV – an app on iPhone/iPad (not sure about Android). For previous rallies this year the format has been a 30 minute highlights programme on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, and a Live Stage on the Saturday afternoon for about an hour.
https://www.redbull.com/in-en/wrc-red-bull-tv-2017
Sky EPG states Driver Press Conference is 60 mins duration, so it looks like the powers that be, are continuing with the 2-part format
Thanks, have changed the text.
I wish highlights on C4 were not over 2 hours. A programme that long is not highlights, it’s almost a rerun. Doubt I’ll be watching a programme that long
No-one said that you had to watch it did they?, I would rather have a rerun than NO coverage at all e.g. in 2019,
There should be an option of shorter highlights online. I enjoy watching f1, but don’t have hours to set aside to watch it
What’s wrong with a rerun?
Too long. I want to watch highlights
If you were that bothered you could always record it and skip through bits yourself. In my eyes a near-enough rerun is great – at the end of the day, it’s more of the race we get to see.
“Eurosport are also broadcasting the MAC3 time trial this season, which I do not believe was broadcast last year.”
It was broadcast last year, part of the Qualifying coverage. It’s just than Eurosport has decide to split those 2 sessions in TV schedules.
Thanks for this, I have amended the text. 🙂
For the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship, you still have the SuperView option on the series’ website. It cost around £25.
I am interested to see if Channel 4 will broadcast 15 minutes extra race coverage, or if this is just for advertising purposes, 8 ad-breaks means a possible 5 during the race. It looks like it will look similar to an ITV race now, roughly 95 minutes (inc. ad-breaks). The rest will be annoying and unnecessary chit-chat.
Can anything be done to amend the deal in 2019?
C5 MotoGP highlights are just an hour on the Monday, not 2 hours as listed above. 🙂