Formula 1 goes back to the United States at the end of October, and this time it might hand out a trophy. The United States Grand Prix runs from Friday 23 to Sunday 25 October at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, and Kimi Antonelli arrives with his first real shot at the 2026 world title.
Put it this way: the last few weeks have turned the championship into a genuine fight rather than a procession.
What happened in Singapore
Last weekend was Singapore, and Max Verstappen owned it. Pole on Friday, sprint win on Saturday, race win on Sunday. A clean sweep, his second victory in a row, and his first ever around Marina Bay. Charles Leclerc finished second for Ferrari, with Antonelli third.
That third place still mattered. Antonelli left Singapore with his championship lead intact and, on paper, able to wrap things up in Austin. His Mercedes team-mate George Russell had a rough weekend, starting nineteenth after an engine penalty and clawing back to ninth.
Why Austin is the one to watch
The Circuit of the Americas is a proper race track: a long uphill run to turn one, a fast flowing first sector, and a bumpy surface that punishes a car that is not set up right. It has produced some of the best races of the last decade, and the huge crowd makes it feel like an event rather than a round.
For Antonelli, the maths is simple enough. A strong result, and the title is his. He is twenty years old. If he does it, that is the sort of thing people remember for a long time.
For Verstappen, the job is harder. He needs to keep winning and hope the points fall his way. On current form, that is not a crazy thought.
The times, for anyone living abroad
Austin is six hours behind the UK, seven behind most of mainland Europe. That means the race lands in the evening in the US but in the middle of the night in Europe: expect lights out around 20:00 local, which is early Sunday morning for anyone in Amsterdam, Berlin or Madrid.
Qualifying on Saturday is similar. If you are an expat in Europe and you follow F1 from home, you already know the drill: set an alarm, make coffee, watch the race before the rest of the house wakes up.
The rights problem, again
Here is the thing that trips people up after a move. In the US the race is on one broadcaster. In the UK it is on another. In the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Australia, it sits behind yet another subscription, and several of those will not let you buy a package unless you live in the country. Your old login from home usually stops working the day you cross a border.
So the sport does not disappear when you move. Your access to it does.
There is a fix for that, and it is the same one that covers the football, the news and everything else you used to watch. An IPTV subscription carries the channels from your home country to whatever screen you own, wherever you have ended up. No renegotiating a local contract, no losing your login. Have a look at the full worldwide line-up on our Channels & Coverage page, then start a free 24-hour test and check your own channels in minutes.
Related reading
- Singapore GP 2026: how expats can watch the night race live
- Watching live sports abroad: football, F1 and more
- Best IPTV for expats in 2026: what to look for
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