9to5Mac.com writer Benjamin Mayo figured this out and published this article on the 9to5Mac website. This is a timely article, because the Bahrain trials start this Wednesday Feb. 11. In short: you go to the F1.TV website and log in, then present your Apple TV credentials to get access to F1.TV. Create a F1.TV account if you don’t already have one – they are free. Apparently, the pre-season will be available on the F1.TV website.
I’m rather surprised that Apple isn’t doing a better job hand-holding the F1 fans to this new service pathway. I have been searching around for weeks; their customer service is rather abysmal on this question. A bunch of US F1 fans are going to be naturally grumpy, because F1 is transitioning from ESPN to Apple TV. I know that @Leo had the premium F1.TV service in the past; those paid subscriptions are no longer available in the US and you must access it through your Apple TV account.
Thanks to 9to5mac for researching and publishing this article yesterday. MacRumors has been silent so far. You should announce this on Tomorrow’s MBW!
Update: it sounds like all the pre-season testing will be streamed on F1.TV. I’d guess the entire season will be accessed that way, but it’s impossible to tell right now. IMHO, Apple has really messed up educating us how this transition should go. I think there’s a Roku app for F1.TV, but I haven’t investigated yet.
It really is such a disaster. I was a happy paying customer for years but now I’ll be going back to piracy to keep up with the season. Exclusivity deals are a lose-lose for everyone.
AFAICT, the Roku F1.TV app hasn’t been updated at all. Apple TV subscribers cannot access anything through the Roku F! app. And the F1 app doesn’t have one of those ACTIVATE URLs to enter credentials on a laptop or tablet. I see no way to access anything F1 on my Roku box.
Apple is usually very good at bringing all these details together for a smooth user experience. It’s especially important here, because some of those US F1 fans are not familiar with Apple. This is the first experience for many users with Apple, and it is a poor experience. Tim Apple: this is not good.
What exec is [mis-]managing this stuff? Is it a miscue for Eddie Cue?
I was able to log into the F1TV Roku app with my F1TV userid and password. Apparently, they’re storing the Apple TV credentials in the back end. I failed to successfully enter my generated password through the Roku remote. I reset my password to an easily-keyable password, entered it, and changed my password back. In other words, I entered my credentials LIKE AN ANIMAL (speaking here in a Rene Ritchie voice). So many Roku apps do this better.
I am able to see the Bahrain Trials and live shows talking about teams shaking down their brand-new 2026 cars.
The F1TV Roku app looks primitive. I’m skeptical that I’ll be able to dial in each car’s camera during a race, but I’ll be able to tell that on March 7. I’m sure Apple has done a great app for their Apple TV hardware, but that’s not good enough. They’ve got to be inclusive and have a great app everywhere. Not everyone will go out and buy Apple hardware to view F1 races!
Once the season starts, won’t it be better to use the Apple TV app on your Roku, which hopefully will have the same functionality as the app on an Apple TV box?
Out of interest, what are they broadcasting? Is it an F1TV stream, Sky Sports, or something new?
It was Alex Brundle, not Martin, and Alex Jacques (never heard of either one). They’re doing the Day 3 coverage. The recap shows are hosted by Betsy Glover, Lawrence Barretto, and Sam Collins. Never heard of them either. Are these people the F1TV broadcasters? Also, I see that the mics being used all have the F1 logo, not Sky, so I’m guessing the FIA is using people from both broadcasts for the Bahrain test sessions.
If that is the same Sam Collins who is an esteemed motorsport engineer, that sounds like a good addition to the crew. He started working at William F1 when he was 16.
I thought the Apple coverage was going to be new. Utilising their new camera tech they used in the F1 film, muti-view, lots of data etc. Maybe that’s future plans.
To be fair, casual fans think the season stars with the first Grand Prix – March 7. Apple may have some things ready for that rollout.
OTOH, Apple should have insisted that F1 perform updates to their F1 apps on all the streaming platforms by now. US users have to figure out how to present their Apple TV credentials to the F1TV website – not the app – and that’s not obvious how to do that. Once you’ve done that, it’s pretty cumbersome to login to the Roku F1TV app. Users who wait until the last minute may not figure that out. Maybe it’s less important for Australia, since the start time for the live race is 1am on the east coast and few US fans will be watching live.
Overall, I’m surprised that media covering Apple has been lacking on this story. It’s a low-news period, and this would have been an excellent story to cover. 9to5mac, Engadget, and Tech Radar have made how-to guides, but most media sources have not.
Regarding the Apple cameras that they used in the film, they were mounted on F2 cars remodelled to look like F1 cars. Also, Apple only has the rights for the US market, so they might not be able to dictate what equipment they want to use, but have to use what the FIA and F1 circus provides.
Pre-season testing is typically a bare-bones broadcast, just a single feed and commentators. F1 has had a magnitude of metadata, including timing data, tire data, track data and more alongside 20+ camera feeds during every race for years now. I’m sure this will continue as Apple elbows their way in. Nothing new about it - quite typical of Apple actually
I never knew he started at Williams! I’ve been following his journo work for years. He’s been fantastic as the technical presenter in the F1TV team. He’s been with them for several years now.
Agreed. The camera and data feeds from the FIA won’t change. It will be interesting to see what Apple does with that information. Watching Day 3 from Bahrain, I noticed they still had Ted Kravitz from Sky in the pits, even though the rest of the broadcast team is apparently the F1TV crew.
I watch the MLS broadcasts on Apple TV and don’t think they really offer anything groundbreaking, except that I can get my local radio announcers instead of the Apple announcers for home matches, compared to the broadcast I get from NBC with their Premiere League coverage.
Just received this email from F1TV regarding my subscription. Quite unhelpful. Really get the sense that the folks behind F1TV aren’t happy with the situation.
Hey! They forgot the obligatory have a nice day. If the F1TV website spoke with a NASCAR south twang, they’d also add a andbless your heart to that.
Apple sweats out the details, but that F1TV website team appears to be running without a MGU-H unit. I’d guess that’s the same [legitimate] message you would be getting anywhere else in the world, and the team neglected to add any US-specific code to the website’s behavior. In my score card, that’s a massive FAIL.
I felt much better when the 2026 F1 calendar weekends showed up on the Apple TV App (Roku in my case). The organization is far better than ESPN ever had. Casual fans will be able to easily play all weekend events here; enthusiastic US fans will be able to find the backdoor to validate their account on the F1TV website for a multi-screen display like Leo. It was amusing to see @Leo grouse about the F1 TV account validation genuflection @2:14:22 of MBW #1012.
The F1 chatter this week is wild. The biggest story was that the Ferrari team got stranded in Doha. This got resolved by March 2, but I’m sure it was pretty scary over the weekend. Odds sound remote that Astin Martin will finish the weekend with Honda engine problems; that sounds familiar. The magical increasing compression ratio in the Mercedes engines may get shut down mid-season. It seems unfortunate that F1 left such a gaping hole in their rules and Mercedes engines are getting penalized for using that loophole – especially since they were talking about it with F1 many months ago.
My point: it’s a really neat time for Apple to be picking up USA F1 coverage. They may instantly get some new fans who are highly engaged in the nuances of the sport. OTOH, some of them may be put off by the arbitrary rulings on the legality of particular details of this year’s formula. I’m a bit put off; I liked it when Hamilton and Rosberg and Bottas were running circles around the field 4-5 years ago. Maybe older fans didn’t like that as much as we did.
I hope Apple is ready to roll with new delicious details.
I wanted to give a shout-out to Michael Gridley’s YouTube feature: The rise and fall of NASCAR: How America’s race lost its speed. I had no idea that NASCAR was the #2 sport in America in the early 2000s. That sounds insane to me. The feature is interesting; there are still many small racetracks all over the south.
You should announce this on Tomorrow’s MBW!
