Sports fans in the US are currently playing catch-up when it comes to F1, though they’re gaining fast on the competition.
For the rest of the world, F1 has been a sporting mainstay for decades, thanks to a season that visits more than 20 different countries in nine action-packed months, bringing noise, speed, danger, and glamor to almost every corner of the planet.
And the most iconic of those locations is undoubtedly Monaco. The Monaco GP takes place on a tight, bendy, challenging urban track spanning two miles of Monte Carlo, the best-known quarter of a glamorous microstate on the French riviera.
Not only is the Monaco GP one of the most demanding and prestigious races in the world, but it’s also where almost half of the top 20 F1 drivers live.
It’s no exaggeration to say that Monaco is the spiritual home of F1, the fastest sport on earth.
The Monaco GP is happening very soon.
At 2pm local time on Sunday 26th May, 20 blisteringly fast, noisy, and powerful automobiles will surge into life as they embark on 78 straining, jostling laps of pure F1 excellence in one of the most glamorous settings imaginable.
The good news is that there are lots of ways to watch F1, including through the F1TV streaming service, which you can access on Fire TV, Roku, and through iOS and Android apps.
A range of other platforms let you watch the F1 coverage on ABC, including live TV streaming services like YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV.
Naturally, ESPN+ is another option, along with a host of other platforms and services that all work fine—but all have one slightly distressing thing in common: they make you pay for the privilege of streaming. That can get expensive over an entire F1 season.
Fortunately, there’s a solution.
How to Watch F1 for Free
F1 may just be getting off the ground in the US, it’s a mainstay in many parts of the world. For that reason, a lot of countries get to stream it for free courtesy of their local TV networks.
To join them, all you need to do is install a VPN like Surfshark.
For the uninitiated, a VPN—or Virtual Private Network—is a tool that routes your internet traffic through an anonymous server somewhere else in the world.
This gives you all kinds of benefits, including a huge degree of privacy, but one of the best things about Surfshark is that it allows you to trick the internet into thinking you’re some place that you’re not.
You can even watch it for free in Austria (Servus TV and ORF), Luxembourg (RTL Zwee), Belgium (RTBF) and ABC over-the-air (UK).
A decent VPN like Surfshark will give you the opportunity to connect to dozens of different servers in dozens of different countries. And once you’ve opted to route your traffic through a server in, say, Belgium, the online world thinks you’re in Belgium. End of story.
That means you can take advantage of all sorts of territorial perks, such as foreign Netflix libraries, regional gaming betas, and tapping into streaming services that are free in other parts of the world.
We could wax lyrical for pages about the benefits of using a VPN, but right now time is of the essence. The Monaco GP is almost upon us, so this is the moment to make your globetrotting virtual arrangements.
There are several different Surfshark subscriptions on offer in terms of features and contract durations, from as little as $2.19 a month.
Head to the Surfshark website to learn more.