Over the years, this site has tended to cover television coverage more than other forms of media, with weekly television schedules whenever there is a Formula 1 race on. The site also has a dedicated page covering all the key UK television and radio contracts.
But, alongside your traditional methods, many championships allow you to watch their action online. Here, we look at what each championship offers directly to the consumer, bypassing the broadcasters, or not as the case may be. This article is aimed at UK readers, but the information may be useful for overseas readers as well.
Note – This is an experimentation post and may not cover every single series out there. Please leave a comment if you find this useful and would like to see this repeated in future with updated information.
Dorna Sports (review)
The commercial rights holder for MotoGP and World Superbikes, Dorna Sports have over-the-top platforms for both. Every session, including support races, airs live on the over-the-top platform with a dedicated on-site team. Full-length replays are available if you missed the action first time round, with the fan able to view the action from a variety of on-board camera angles. Access to the respective platforms also unlock MotoGP’s and World Superbikes’ rich archive.
Available via desktop, Android and Apple devices, the MotoGP package is priced at £174.36 for the complete season, or £44.45 in four instalments. The World Superbikes offering is considerably cheaper than MotoGP at £60.98 for the season, or £13.00 per month. Even considering the smaller calendar, on a per-race weekend basis, the MotoGP price works out at £9.18, whilst the Superbikes offering is just £4.69, a sign of their respective popularity.
Formula E
Despite being one of the newer series in this list, surprisingly the electric Formula E championship does not have an over-the-top platform. Fans wanting to watch the action can find some live coverage on Formula E’s YouTube channel, but the availability depends on territory. UK fans can watch live practice on their YouTube channel, but no further than that.
The geo-blocking restrictions are lifted after the session for practice and qualifying, whilst full races are made available several weeks after the race, although one might argue that they have lost their value by that point in time. The lack of an over-the-top platform currently may come and bite them back in a few years’ time, especially considering the recent developments from Formula 1.
Formula One Management
Announced in February, Formula 1 has confirmed that their streaming service will launch ready for the Spanish Grand Prix in May. At launch, F1 TV Pro will be available via desktop and will only contain Formula 1 coverage; with other devices, and the appearance of the feeder series’ coming later in the year.
However, UK fans will not have access to the premium version due to the television agreements already in place. Barring some form of new arrangement between Formula One Management and Sky, do not expect UK fans to be able to access F1 TV Pro until 2025. F1 TV Access though, is another question…
GT Sport Organisation
GT Sport created and is responsible for the Euroformula Open and the International GT Open, both of which air live in the UK on BT Sport.
As with other championships on a similar footing, GT Sport live streams the action on their two YouTube channels, covering qualifying and the race: EuroFormulaOpen and GTOPENseries. English commentary comes from Ben Evans, who fans in the UK may recognise from BT Sport’s IndyCar coverage.
IndyCar
Unlike Supercars below, IndyCar does not currently offer an over-the-top product for overseas fans of the championship. Race Control only extends as far as live timing, but no visual imagery is involved. However, its social media offering is comprehensive, with live streaming of its feeder Indy Lights series, as well as live action from practice via their various outlets.
For fans without access to BT Sport, the full US race programme from either ABC, ESPN or NBC is uploaded to IndyCar’s YouTube channel around four days after the event. With IndyCar’s domestic rights in the US changing for 2019 in NBC’s favour, the streaming picture could change as well.
SRO Motorsports Group
Not to be confused with GT Sport’s portfolio of championships, SRO Motorsports Group is the commercial rights holder for several of the leading GT championships worldwide. If you are into GT racing, the GTWorld YouTube channel, operated by SRO, is the place to be.
It is on YouTube where SRO live stream the likes of the Blancpain GT Series and the British GT, for free. In addition, the Blancpain website plays host to live streaming of the GT Series.
Supercars
Not in Australia? No problem. The Virgin Australia Supercars streaming service SuperView gives fans outside of Australia the ability to live stream, rewind and replay every Supercars qualifying and race session in 2018. The restriction that previously applied to the Australian Grand Prix weekend was lifted for 2018, meaning that all events are now available on the service.
Priced at £32.80 based on the current conversion rate for the complete season, SuperView is a steal if you are looking to watch some motor racing action at your leisure throughout 2018. With 16 races across the year, the series costs UK fans just £2.05 per race weekend.
World Rally Championship (review)
From 2018, rally fans can view every World Rally Championship stage live. For £7.79 a month, or £77.98 for a complete year, fans can watch every stage either live or on-demand across a variety of devices.
However, you can only do that up and until the next rally comes along: there is no way to view the ‘All Live’ content once it disappears from the schedule a few days after the event finishes. Whilst the live element is great, WRC’s over-the-top product is still rough around the edges which is worth bearing in mind if you are unlikely to watch the action in a timely fashion. Nevertheless, WRC’s pricing structure remain extremely good value for money.
Are there any other major championships that have streaming capability that I have not mentioned? Have your say in the comments below.
Motorsport Broadcasting 
Supercars Media forgot to update the home page of SuperView. The Australian Grand Prix weekend was live streamed and all replays are available.
One service you have forgot is the WEC.
I’ve updated the SuperView section. Will add WEC soon. 🙂
Hi, Red Bull TV coverage of WRC is better than BT Sport, it’s always on at the same time and is FREE!
Totally agree with Steven – the Red Bull TV coverage of the WRC is superb. Recap on Friday evening, live stage on Saturday afternoon, recap on Saturday evening, and recap on Sunday evening. All you need is their free app. Thoroughly recommended.
What’s strange is the IndyCar channel had the st Petersburg race available 2-3 days after the race. Yet a week. Later and phoenix still isn’t on the YouTube channel 🤨
Not sure if you intended this to just be about paid streaming, but there’s a load of free stuff out there too that’s worth a shout.
BTCC as well as the usual ITV catchup services has a dedicated page http://www.itv.com/btcc where they put all the races of the current season, including supports.
IMSA Weathertech Championship streams live for free, globally except to the home US market. Includes qualifying and support races. Great to watch something like Daytona 24 Hours live for free! Races are usually on YouTube within a week.
Live: http://www.imsa.tv
Archive: http://www.youtube.com/user/UnitedSportsCar
European Le Mans Series is live both on YouTube and DailyMotion, all races archived.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU8C8RqGhqH4nhk4mlN1Vwg
http://www.dailymotion.com/ELMS
Same with the supporting Le Mans Cup (including the Road To Le Mans race the morning of the 24 Hours).
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDc_cN2tfvBYmym3D1CeB3g
I can’t say I watch it but every 24H Series race is live on their site (this is Dubai 24 Hours etc.) linkable via their schedule history (pick a race, go to Video tab).
https://www.24hseries.com/series/races
For Formula E, qualifying is available via Youtube for UK fans and it’s good thing too as it’s in HD unlike Spike!
I was going to point that out. Watching qualy on YouTube also cuts out all the terribly-timed 5Spike ad breaks! Isn’t some Formula E coverage broadcast on their Facebook channel as well?
Hi, just wondering does NASCAR or any of the supporting series’ have an Ott streaming service and also do f2 and gp3 intend having their own OTT streaming services even though they’re expected to be on FOM service which can’t be accessed in Rep of Ireland or UK??
I know NASCAR does have a service for international fans called ‘Trackpass’ which was launched last year but I’ve no idea if it is actually any good as I’ve never subscribed to it and they don’t seem to push it in advertising at all.
http://www.trackpass.nascar.com/ – You can check it out here.
An excellent round-up thanks David.
WEC has, in the past, been available on manufacturers platforms (e.g. Audi).
In answer to your question: Yes I would love to see this updated. It saves hunting around for a ‘casual watch’ of motorsports outside my usual interests.
Indycar does stream on YouTube / other social media / it’s race control page so long as that session is not being broadcast on US TV.
(So you can watch practices and a good number of qualifying as only NBCSN show it live (well ABC show Indy qualifying live obviously) and then not all the time.)
The Japanese Super GT series, now starring Jenson Button, streams live on the NISMO TV YouTube channel with an English commentary team. The channel also covers other series including Blancpain GT Asia.
INDYCAR and NASCAR both have live radio (no television) streaming on their Web sites during races. The free live timing and scoring sites have links to radio commentary (which is the same that families on vacation, over-the-road lorry drivers, and those working can listen domestically on their local INDYCAR, MRN, or PRN radio stations). It used to be a requirement that to get on a domestic motorsport television commentary team, you had to gain experience on radio. That’s how Bestwick, Joy, Alexander, Snider, Lee, Hargitt, and even in the past Jenkins, Page, and King gained experience. This year INDYCAR is using former development driver Anders Krohn as a radio commentator joining Mark Jaynes and his staff.
The current live streaming of practice and qualifying uses the INDYCAR Radio Network commentary team. But both NASCAR and INDYCAR rely on radio and fans both at the track and fans who are on the road, playing a round of golf, or watching their kids play youth sport and away from a screen embrace the radio commentary listen to it together, which is why in either discipline on television the commentator is prone to say “Trouble” when there is an incident — that’s how radio has done it for decades.
When Dave Moody, Jake Query, Mike Bagley, Jerry Baker, or any list of radio commentators climb those ten-metre or taller towers with an engineer, binoculars, and a headset, they’re standing metres from the barrier and watching the action where fans can hear the cars roar by as they pass by the commentary post.
Even with NBC’s video coverage INDYCAR will retain their audio coverage with WFNI Radio that will remain free.