How to watch Bahrain testing as Sky Sports confirm changes | F1 | Sport
Formula 1 pre-season testing is finally under way with cars on track at the Bahrain International Circuit from Wednesday to Friday this week. Fans who are looking for wall-to-wall coverage of the action will, however, be left disappointed as there is only a limited amount of live broadcasting going on this week from the paddock.
This is the first open test of the year, after the shakedown week in Barcelona at the end of January was held behind closed doors, with the gates locked and security teams sweeping the surroundings of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya to move onlookers along. That provided a mostly-secret environment for teams to test their 2026 cars and engines for the first time, although some snippets of information did inevitably get out.
This time, the media have been invited along and there are photographers in place around the Bahrain track to capture detailed images of this new generation of F1 cars for the first time. There will, however, be very little live TV coverage of this first Bahrain test, with Sky Sports confirming they will be showing only the final hour of each day’s running as it happens.
That means viewers will be able to tune in from 3pm to see cars on track for themselves for the first time this year. Beyond that, they will have to wait until later in the evening on each day for a Testing Wrap show at 8pm, followed by Ted’s Testing Notebook at 8.30pm as pit lane reporter Ted Kravitz returns to our screens for another season.
It is understood that Sky have agreed to show only limited live coverage as part of an agreement with F1 chiefs about this first open test of pre-season. Despite having run at the Barcelona shakedown, teams are still learning a great deal about their 2026 cars and engines because they have been designed to a whole different set of regulations.
Much of their work will be conducted in the garages, leaving the potential for large gaps between on-track action which would benefit neither broadcasters nor F1 itself when it comes to live broadcasting. Plus, having anticipated the likelihood of reliability issues during these initial track runs, teams were reluctant about the idea of the whole of pre-season testing being shown live to the world.
The move is a departure from recent years, in which the whole of pre-season testing has usually been shown live. However, these are still technically additional days of testing compared to past campaigns when only three days of track time was allowed. With the Barcelona shakedown and this first batch of Bahrain testing, the amount of track time teams have been given has tripled for this year, to help them to work out any major issues in their creations for the new regulations.
Fear not, though, because it will be business as usual for fans wanting to watch from home next week, as the second Bahrain test will be broadcast live in full, with eight hours’ worth of track time scheduled on each day between Wednesday and Friday. That will be the final opportunity for teams to assess the real-world performance of their 2026 cars before the season begins with the Australian Grand Prix on March 8.
