Australian Grand Prix TV times

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We’re one week away from the start of the F1 season – the Australian Grand Prix.

Here in Britain the BBC’s much-vaunted new F1 coverage will make its debut. Here are the times of their F1 programmes – please share details of coverage in your country below.

You can follow all the sessions live on F1 Fanatic in the live blogs. See here for more information: 2009 F1 live blogs.

For exact start times of all the sessions see here: Australian Grand Prix 2009.

Friday 27th March

Free practice 1 live: 1:25am – 3:05am BBC via Red Button / online
Free practice 2 live: 5:25am – 7:05am BBC via Red Button / online

Saturday 28th March

Free practice 3 live: 2:25am – 4:05am BBC via Red Button / online
Qualifying live: 5:00am – 7:15am BBC One / online
Qualifying repeat: 1:00pm – 2:15pm BBC One

Sunday 29th March

Australian Grand Prix live: 6:00am – 9:00am BBC One / online
Australian Grand Prix repeat: 1:00pm – 3:00pm BBC One / online
Australian Grand Prix highlights: 7:00pm – 8:00pm BBC Three / online

There is also radio coverage of the sessions on BBC Radio Five Live and/or BBC Radio Five Live Sports Extra.

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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28 comments on “Australian Grand Prix TV times”

  1. And don’t forget that the clocks go forward one hour early on the Sunday morning, so adjust alarm clocks accordingly!

    1. thank you loads lol, i shall remember that now. cheers

    2. ajokay: cheers for that! Do you know if the times listed above take this into account? Seems like a dumb question but it’s always confusing!

    3. This will be the easiest hour lost in bed to wake up for :D

  2. Anyone know how to watch friday practice session for those who lived around south east asia?
    Does Star Sports covered friday practice live just like they did when Singapore GP was held?

  3. Here in Montreal we basically have the two local sports networks – one French, one English; both carry the qualifying and the race at 2AM – you can forget about any extras like free practice, etc. TSN (english) used to take the ITV feed with Allen and Brundle and I suppose they’ll take the BBC feed now. RDS (french) works off the same feed, but with two quite excellent local french commentators who are unfortunately limited by what the tv feed provides them.

    Since I have gotten rid of my cable connection some months ago, I’m stuck watching whatever mediocre quality feeds I can find on the web. If anyone out there knows a reliable way to access the BBC website through a UK server on a 10.5 OSX Mac I would be incredibly grateful! I’ve tried a few things, but without success. I need better F1 coverage! Thanks.

  4. We should post the times of any build-up/related programming too. I’m sure we can expect a racing movie among other things.

    I think I’m one of the only racing fans in the world that actually likes Days of Thunder ;)

  5. According to the Andrew Benson blog on the BBC website

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2009/03/looking_forward_to_melbourne.html

    the BBC intend to show highlights of a classic event before each race this year following a vote.

    From what I can tell this will just be online, does anyone know if they intend to put on one of their TV Channels or the Red Button.

    1. Thanks very cool – nice one Beeb 8-)

  6. Star Sports seems to have invented a time-machine. It’s going to broadcast the qualifying on Friday and the race on Saturday.

    http://espnstar.com/tv-listings/region1/day9/

  7. StrFerrari4Ever
    20th March 2009, 18:10

    mm thanks for this Keith well hop on the friday i can stay up and my parents wont say anything like go to bed you have school in the morning i really wanna see all the sessions :D i might just say F1 over school :D

  8. you can go around the circuit on that google street view thingy.Although you can see the pit building and grid markings it’s very hard to tell it’s a race circuit!

    1. Here’s a link:

  9. Al, I don’t think that link works in the way you expected. Gives a space-scale map of the UK.
    Anyway, I’ll be watching.
    Can’t tell you how excited I am for this season. Should be superb.

    1. Sorry,I should of checked it first!
      If you search for melbourne you should find it.

  10. the BBC intend to show highlights of a classic event before each race this year following a vote.

    From what I can tell this will just be online, does anyone know if they intend to put on one of their TV Channels or the Red Button.

    Think it’s going to be on the red button as well as online.

    1. Just to reply to myself, check out post 101 here for confirmation: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2009/03/looking_forward_to_melbourne.html

      Looks like it should appear on Wednesday. Freeview viewers will in general have it available for less time than DSAT viewers, it appears, due to bandwidth limitationts, but if the info in the blog is correct it’ll be on the red button freeview service from 0830-2000 and 2130-0130 for Australia – see post 187, same link as before, for this.

  11. I’m so jealous of you all.

    I’m a brit who moved to usa last year and now has no way of watching the grands prix this season.

    Hopefully my brother back in the uk will record the qualy and races for me. But that meanss i won’tget to see the races until probably the following event.

    It’ll be strange seing al te comments on here for something i haven’t been able to watch.

    YES i know you’re all saying it’s my fault for moving from the uk.

    i know i know ………..
    sigh!!!!!!!!!!

  12. scunnyman – can’t you get SpeedTV ?

  13. Scunnyman, SPEED TV carries F1 practice, qualifying and the race live. You can get it through almost any cable provider in the US and on DirectTV it is channel 607. So, I suggest if your cable company doesn’t offer SPEED TV, then upgrade to DirectTV and do it quick.

    Here is the schedule for the US.
    SPEED TV
    Friday 27 March
    1:00am ET Inside Grand Prix Australia Preview
    1:30am ET Practice

    Saturday 28 March
    1:00am ET The Grid (review show)
    1:30am ET Inside Grand Prix repeat
    2:00am ET Qualifying

    Sunday 29 March
    12:30am ET The Grid repeat
    1:00am ET Formula 1 Grand Prix View (2009 preview show)
    2:00am ET Australian Grand Prix
    4:00pm ET Race repeat

    http://www.speedtv.com/

    1. Thanks Steve.

      My problem is i do not have any tv transmission at all.
      I was getting Cox cable here in Phoenix arizona. BUt they messed me out and i had to cancel. And money the way it is i can’t get anything in the short term.

      I also don’t like Speedtv’s coverage much. I wish the BBC would show grands prix on bbc world too for when i do get tv back again.

      And thanks to D Winn for the speedtv thing. Even though you think i am crap at quiz’s lol

  14. sorry to be a noob. Can i confirm that ‘online’ means the iPlayer?

    1. Yep :-)

    2. Thanks Keith. :)

  15. The BBC has announced the winner of its classic Australian Grand Prix feature, 1994 and 1986

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2009/03/classic_australian_gp_the_winn.html

    They have also put the shortlist up for the Malaysian GP in the same article.

  16. Does anyone know if the actuall race starts at 7am BST or is it 6am as coverage starts at 6am on the BBC.

  17. BBC site says it starts at 5am. This contradicts Keith’s post of 6am to 9am, so my alarm clock would be glad of a precise answer too! 6am seems a guarantee though, new UK time, as if the race doesn’t start til 7am you can at least watch the build up, or snooze for an hour. Jake Humphrey *yawn*. Maybe for those of us without f1fanatic.co.uk then an hour of build up is useful still.

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