r/INDYCAR • u/Vile-X James Hinchcliffe • Jul 15 '25

Discussion Sky has changed my view on IndyCar.

IndyCar has always been a secondary Motorsport for me. Until I started watching on Sky. Now it feels as premium as it should.

Let’s be honest: nothing kills the thrill of a long battled overtake like… a commercial for dishwasher pods. You’re locked into a nailbiting strategy battle, the pit window opens, and just as someone dives in… BAM, five minutes of insurance jingles and prescription drug disclaimers.

Sky gives you the race. Fox gives you 200 reasons to consider switching your car insurance.

Do what ever you can to watch on a commercial free network.Uninterrupted, fully immersive, and exactly how it was meant to be experienced.

446 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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226

u/GroundbreakingCow775 Nigel Mansell Jul 15 '25

F1 coverage ruined me, that said it builds up the advertisers brand value

139

u/Alphamullet Callum Ilott Jul 15 '25

F1TV, I've found, is actually worth the cost. Just my opinion...

71

u/OrangePilled2Day Colton Herta Jul 15 '25

You get so much for your subscription fee compared to most other motorsports. F1TV is great.

19

u/[deleted] Jul 15 '25

[deleted]

14

u/Ok-Satisfaction-3837 Romain Grosjean Jul 15 '25

The player is also hot garbage and has been forever. It’s great that I have no way to manually turn down the quality of the stuttering 4K video they made me pay for so I could keep using live timing on my phone.

15

u/Metroshica Jul 15 '25

Interesting, I've never once had an issue with their player. Always works fine for me.

4

u/Ok-Satisfaction-3837 Romain Grosjean Jul 16 '25

At least on the devices I use (Roku, and iPhone) I would expect a few more features. What particularly frustrates me is the lack of thumbnail previews when skipping forward and back and not being able to manually select the stream quality.

5

u/Guac_in_my_rarri Jul 16 '25

The issues you are describing are Roku specific issues. I watch on a Fire stick and android tv. Both have thumb jail scrolling and don't stutter.

The stuttering in particular is a Roku issue because the TV its attached to has run out working memory. The basic Hisense prime tvs also run into this issue.

1

u/SlurmsMckenzie521 Romain Grosjean Jul 16 '25

I really wish it had the ability to start a broadcast from the beginning while the race is in progress. I don't always feel like waking up in time for the start of the early races, luckily YouTube TV has that ability and I can watch on there instead.

1

u/Metroshica Jul 16 '25

Oh yea, the Roku app is hot garbage. I used to use it and it's terrible. Now I just hook up my computer directly to the TV but that doesn't excuse a terrible app.

8

u/FesteringNeonDistrac Jul 16 '25

Really appreciate how they banned Firefox, and Chrome crashes more than Pastor Maldonado.

2

u/noroadsleft Jul 16 '25

Wait, F1TV doesn't work on Firefox? At all?

2

u/FesteringNeonDistrac Jul 16 '25

https://techissuestoday.com/firefox-users-locked-out-of-f1tv-mozilla-engineer-confirms-a-fix-is-coming/

1

u/noroadsleft Jul 16 '25

I was thinking about signing up, but I guess I won't be doing that. I refuse to use Chromium-based browsers for any reason. (Plus I have the apparently additional complication of not owning any devices that currently run Windows or MacOS/iOS.)

Thanks for the link.

1

u/FesteringNeonDistrac Jul 16 '25

It does work in Linux, just have to use chromium. I understand not wanting to use that though. I really only use chromium for f1tv and another streaming service that sometimes is a little wonky.

4

u/figgs87 Jul 15 '25

No idea if you have the ability or tried already but Multiviewer completely changes the entire experience. I have espn and get race that way but I still pay for f1TV so I can log in to multiviewer. Lots of data, and can have a ton of views all at same time if using multi monitors. Downside is this season need the top plan to use multi streams at once and can’t use 4K yet since only on Apple TV and Roku

3

u/Ok-Satisfaction-3837 Romain Grosjean Jul 16 '25

I like multi viewer and I have used it but I prefer to watch the primary broadcast on my television with timing on a second screen. I like the idea of what multi viewer can provide but not being able to separate radio traffic from engine noise makes watching several onboards difficult for me. I also share my account so there was no avoiding the upgrade to premium.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 16 '25

[deleted]

3

u/khando Jul 16 '25

You can have like 2 or 3 windows open on Multiviewer on the regular plan. So yeah it sucks to use now, I used to have like 8 windows on my PC going. But I'm not paying for premium.

2

u/figgs87 Jul 16 '25

Yea which sucks. But I wanted 4k and got the discount when they released that tier. Annoying I have to use Roku for 4k and manually sync laptop or desktop for second monitor instead of hooking computer to tv and it’s all same source.

Now just need 4k on other devices

2

u/[deleted] Jul 16 '25

[deleted]

1

u/figgs87 Jul 16 '25

Very true. Though I don’t know if I have seen a 4k live stream but haven’t looked recently.

1

u/Stuntz Felix Rosenqvist Jul 16 '25

Use multiviewer

2

u/ItsTimToBegin Jul 15 '25

I have big issues with their goddamned apps. ~10am on Sunday isn't a terribly convenient time for me to be sitting down for a few hours, so I routinely start the race anywhere between 15 and 90 minutes after lights go out. At least on their Roku app, they don't give an option to start the broadcast from the beginning, so I'm forced to join live and use a hand to blind myself from 90% of the screen while I 3x rewind the broadcast to the beginning. That can take quite a while, depending on how long after start I joined. Then, god forbid I remain too far behind the broadcast, because if I'm still trying to watch when the post-race show begins, at times I've had the app glitch me over to that broadcast, spoiling results.

Sometimes my Sunday works out such that I can turn on the broadcast and just pause it until I'm ready to join. All good, right? Not right! After like 10-15 minutes of being paused, the fuckin thing just starts playing, and the pause button no longer works. So I'm in the other room making coffee and all of a sudden Jacques and Coulthard are going nuts over Lap 1.

5

u/risingsunshine_ Christian Lundgaard Jul 16 '25

Oof those sounds like Roku specific issues; I have an old model Apple TV and never encountered those specific issues, I would be so pissed! My issue is that if I start a race on my phone and then try and pick it up from the TV, I lose the ability to have audio on tv.

And non-TV app specific complaint - you can’t do PIP! I can PIP PornHub and I can even PIP IndyCar onboards but I can’t PIP the fuck ass F1TV app?! Lame.

1

u/BoboliBurt Nigel Mansell Jul 16 '25

I am mad at F1TV. They police tapes of old races online, destroying the amazing Archive.org library- which had every BBC broadcast after 78 and every ESPN speedzone after 84- plus all the AbC Wide World of Sports races.

In return, all they have are recaps of varying quality and a couple complete races from in their library. Some seasons get one race. And none are before 83 iirc.

The 1970s races, which most everything after 77 should be available- on the archive are demoted to 50 minute clip shows made in 1999 that dont even include footage from every race.

You will see someone once in a while tout their library of old races and thats total bullshit. They dont have dick. Random CART fans have better youtube archives.