Formula 1 · Race Weekend Guide

Spa 2026: Every Session Time and How to Watch the Belgian Grand Prix

F1’s longest lap, its most unpredictable weather, and a title fight compressed to 25 points. Everything you need to plan your Belgian Grand Prix weekend, wherever you’re watching from.

After Silverstone’s Sprint chaos, Formula 1 returns to a traditional weekend format for one of the sport’s true cathedrals. The Belgian Grand Prix takes over Spa-Francorchamps from July 17-19, opening the crucial double-header that closes out the first half of the season before F1’s month-long summer break. Three practice sessions, one qualifying hour, and 44 laps of the longest circuit on the calendar — with a championship that Silverstone blew wide open and a forecast that, as ever in the Ardennes, refuses to commit to anything.

Full weekend schedule

All sessions are listed in local Belgian time (CEST, UTC+2), with UK time (BST) alongside. Spa runs a standard Grand Prix format this year — no Sprint.

Friday, July 17

• Free Practice 1 13:30 CEST / 12:30 BST
• Free Practice 2 17:00 CEST / 16:00 BST

Saturday, July 18

• Free Practice 3 12:30 CEST / 11:30 BST
• Qualifying 16:00 CEST / 15:00 BST

Sunday, July 19

• Belgian Grand Prix — 44 laps 15:00 CEST / 14:00 BST / 09:00 ET

Where to watch

In the United States, Apple TV is Formula 1’s new home from 2026, carrying every practice, qualifying and race session live through its dedicated F1 channel, alongside a full catch-up and highlights library. UK viewers get complete live coverage on Sky Sports F1, with free highlights on Channel 4 in the evening. Globally, F1 TV Pro offers every session live in selected countries with onboard cameras on all 22 cars, while F1 TV Premium adds 4K Ultra HD and a multiview feature. Pre-race build-up typically begins 60 to 90 minutes before lights out.

The story arriving in the Ardennes

Kimi Antonelli comes to Spa still leading the drivers’ championship — but far less comfortably than a fortnight ago. His Silverstone wheel shield failure cost him a probable victory and zero points, allowing teammate George Russell to close within 25 points, with Lewis Hamilton a further seven back in third. Ferrari, meanwhile, arrives with genuine momentum: Charles Leclerc’s British Grand Prix win was the team’s second in three races, and the Scuderia has clawed 22 points from Mercedes’ constructors’ lead in the space of an afternoon.

Spa’s length and layout should theoretically play to Mercedes’ strengths, but Hamilton holds the all-time record for pole positions at this circuit with six — and Ferrari’s straight-line deficit, so punishing in Austria, was mysteriously absent at Silverstone. Red Bull, by contrast, arrives braced for difficulty: Max Verstappen has openly warned that Spa’s characteristics could expose the same weaknesses that plagued him in England, calling it “a real shame” given the track is among his favourites. His rear wing, the subject of an FIA safety review after two crashes, remains the weekend’s biggest technical question mark.

The weather could rewrite everything

Spa’s microclimate is legendary for a reason: the Ardennes forest can leave one end of the 7km lap bone dry while rain lashes the other. Current forecasts point to warm conditions with high chances of precipitation across all three days — and here’s the detail that makes it fascinating: drivers have not yet raced in the wet in 2026. An entirely new generation of car, with unfamiliar energy deployment behaviour and radically different aerodynamics, has never been tested in genuinely wet racing conditions. If the rain arrives at Spa, nobody on the grid will fully know what to expect.

• Round 12 of the 2026 season, and the first race of a double-header before the summer break.
• Oscar Piastri won last year’s Belgian Grand Prix in a wet-dry affair, ahead of Norris and Leclerc.
• Formula 2 also races at Spa this weekend, with Red Bull junior Nikola Tsolov leading the standings.
• Aston Martin’s revised B-spec car is not due until the following round in Hungary.