Formula 1 goes to Texas this weekend. The United States Grand Prix runs from Friday 23 to Sunday 25 October at Circuit of the Americas, just outside Austin, and it is round 18 of the season.
The schedule is friendly if you live in Europe, which is not always the case with American races.
The times, in European terms
First practice starts Friday at 7:30 pm in the Netherlands and Belgium, 6:30 pm in the UK. Second practice is late: 11 pm on the continent, 10 pm in Britain.
Saturday is the good day. Third practice at 7:30 pm, qualifying at 10 pm continental time, 9 pm UK. Qualifying at COTA is worth the evening on its own. The first sector runs uphill into a blind left-hander and the lap never really settles after that.
Then Sunday. The race starts at 3 pm in Austin, which is 9 pm in the Netherlands, 8 pm in the UK, 10 pm in Spain and Greece. One detail people miss: European clocks go back that same morning, so double-check your reminder. It is the one weekend of the year where a 3 pm start in Texas lands at a civilised hour in Amsterdam by accident.
What is on the undercard
COTA is a festival with a race attached. F1 Academy runs its reverse grid race on Saturday and the feature race on Sunday morning. Porsche Carrera Cup North America and the Masters Historic series fill the gaps. Post Malone plays the super stage on Saturday, Alesso on Sunday after the podium. If you are going in person, the parking lots open at 8 am and the gates at 8:30 on race day. Go early, the traffic on FM 812 is famous for a reason.
On track, the story of the autumn is how tight the front has become. Max Verstappen took the last race in Bahrain, with Kimi Antonelli second and Lewis Hamilton third, and the gaps at the front have been small enough all season that a bad pit stop decides a Sunday. Austin adds heat, a bumpy surface and altitude, so the setup window is narrow. Somebody usually gets it wrong and spends 56 laps sliding.
And there is football tonight
If you are reading this on Wednesday, the Champions League is on before the cars even leave the garage. Matchday 3 finishes tonight with Bayern Munich against Arsenal, Real Madrid against RB Leipzig, Inter against Shakhtar and Aston Villa against Viking. Early kick-offs at 6:45 pm include Como against Manchester United and Lille against Galatasaray. Two screens, one sofa, no shame.
The annoying part about watching from abroad
F1 rights are sold country by country. The American broadcaster geo-blocks you. The Dutch, British or German package only works while you are in that country, or at least it pretends to. F1 TV Pro is not available everywhere, and the version you can buy abroad sometimes shows you less than the one at home. Then the football is on a different service again.
This is the same problem expats hit with every sport. Four subscriptions, three logins, one match missed because the app decided to update itself at kick-off. An IPTV line solves it in the boring way: the channels you grew up with plus the international sports feeds, on the television you already own, one remote.
Our guide to watching live sports abroad covers football, F1, tennis and baseball, including the time zones. If you want to see how a race weekend works end to end, the Singapore night race piece walks through practice, qualifying and the race. For hardware, the best IPTV for expats guide is the place to start, and the full sports line-up sits on the channels page.
Qualifying at 10 pm on Saturday is a decent test. If your stream holds through Q3 without buffering, you are set for Sunday.
Related reading
- Champions League Matchday 3: The Ties Worth Staying Up For
- Premier League This Weekend: The Games Expats Chase
- NBA Opening Night 2026: How Expats Can Watch
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