How to Watch the São Paulo Grand Prix in Australia

Lights out for the São Paulo Grand Prix is 4:00am AEDT on Monday 9 November, and the only way to watch it live in Australia is on Fox Sports, through either Kayo Sports or a Foxtel subscription.

That means a pre-dawn alarm before work for most of the east coast, while Brisbane gets the start at 3:00am and Perth gets off comparatively lightly at 1:00am.

The championship is already settled. Kimi Antonelli finished third in Mexico City on Sunday to become the youngest world champion in Formula 1 history at 20 years and 68 days, which takes the headline storyline away from Interlagos but leaves plenty behind it, because Mercedes can wrap up the constructors' title this weekend and four drivers are separated by just 16 points in the scrap for second.

São Paulo Grand Prix 2026: The Details

• Event: Formula 1 MSC Cruises Grande Prêmio de São Paulo 2026, round 20 of 23
• Circuit: Autódromo José Carlos Pace (Interlagos), 4.309km, 71 laps
• Format: standard weekend with three practice sessions, qualifying and the Grand Prix, no Sprint
• Race date: Sunday 8 November local time, which is Monday 9 November in Australia
• Lights out: 2:00pm local time, which is 4:00am AEDT
• Qualifying: Saturday 7 November, 3:00pm local time, which is 5:00am AEDT on Sunday
• Broadcast in Australia: Fox Sports, via Kayo Sports and Foxtel, live and ad-break free during racing
• Free-to-air: none

Interlagos is one of the shortest laps on the calendar, so the race rarely drags. Last year's Grand Prix ran a little over an hour and a half, which puts the chequered flag at roughly 5:30am on the east coast if nothing goes badly wrong.

Three rounds follow Brazil, starting with Las Vegas, and the F1 2026 calendar has the full run home.

How to Watch the Brazilian Grand Prix in Australia

Fox Sports has held the Australian F1 rights since 2015 and signed a fresh multi-year extension with Formula 1 in March 2026, just before the season opener in Melbourne.

Every practice session, qualifying session and Grand Prix is shown live, with Fox carrying the Sky Sports F1 coverage and no ad breaks while the cars are on track.

There are two ways to get it.

Kayo Sports

Kayo is the simplest option for most punters, since it streams the full Fox Sports F1 coverage to phones, tablets, smart TVs, gaming consoles and the web.

Every session sits on demand afterwards, and Kayo's no-spoilers setting hides scores and results if you plan to sleep through the race and watch it over breakfast.

Kayo runs a Standard plan and a Premium plan, and Premium is the one to have if you want the race in 4K on a big screen. Pricing changes from time to time, so check Kayo directly for the current monthly rate.

Foxtel and Foxtel Now

Foxtel subscribers need the Sports pack to get Fox Sports, either through a set-top box or the Foxtel app, while Foxtel Now, the streaming version, needs its sports add-on as well. It is the same coverage as Kayo, just through a different front door.

What About F1 TV?

F1 TV Pro is not sold as a standalone live product in Australia, so the F1 TV app on its own gets you replays, timing data and magazine content rather than live races.

Kayo also offers the F1 TV commentary feed, led by Alex Jacques and Jolyon Palmer, as an alternative audio option for every Grand Prix this year, though not for practice or qualifying.

Foxtel subscribers go a step further, since they can redeem F1 TV Pro through their subscription and the F1 TV app is built into Foxtel set-top boxes. If you are planning to follow along with a wager, our guide on how to bet on Formula 1 runs through the main markets.

No Free-to-Air Coverage

Network 10 holds free-to-air rights to the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne and nothing else, because that race sits on the anti-siphoning list. Interlagos, like every other round, is pay TV only in Australia.

São Paulo Grand Prix Session Times in Australia

São Paulo runs 14 hours behind Sydney and Melbourne at this time of year, since Brazil no longer uses daylight saving and the east coast now does. That pushes every session into the small hours, so here is the full weekend converted by state.

Practice 1, Friday 6 November (local time)

• Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Hobart: 2:30am AEDT, Saturday 7 November
• Brisbane: 1:30am AEST, Saturday
• Adelaide: 2:00am ACDT, Saturday
• Darwin: 1:00am ACST, Saturday
• Perth: 11:30pm AWST, Friday

Practice 2, Friday 6 November (local time)

• Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Hobart: 6:00am AEDT, Saturday 7 November
• Brisbane: 5:00am AEST, Saturday
• Adelaide: 5:30am ACDT, Saturday
• Darwin: 4:30am ACST, Saturday
• Perth: 3:00am AWST, Saturday

Practice 3, Saturday 7 November (local time)

• Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Hobart: 1:30am AEDT, Sunday 8 November
• Brisbane: 12:30am AEST, Sunday
• Adelaide: 1:00am ACDT, Sunday
• Darwin: 12:00am ACST, Sunday
• Perth: 10:30pm AWST, Saturday

Qualifying, Saturday 7 November (local time)

• Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Hobart: 5:00am AEDT, Sunday 8 November
• Brisbane: 4:00am AEST, Sunday
• Adelaide: 4:30am ACDT, Sunday
• Darwin: 3:30am ACST, Sunday
• Perth: 2:00am AWST, Sunday

Grand Prix, Sunday 8 November (local time)

• Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Hobart: 4:00am AEDT, Monday 9 November
• Brisbane: 3:00am AEST, Monday
• Adelaide: 3:30am ACDT, Monday
• Darwin: 2:30am ACST, Monday
• Perth: 1:00am AWST, Monday

Qualifying is the session to set an alarm for if you only manage one. It lands at 5:00am on a Sunday on the east coast, which is early but gettable, and grid position matters at Interlagos even though it is one of the better tracks for overtaking.

The race itself is the tough one, because it falls on a Monday morning in every Australian time zone. Perth viewers have the best of it with a 1:00am start that finishes before 3:00am.

Why Interlagos Rarely Runs to Script

Interlagos is a short, anti-clockwise lap with big elevation changes, a long climb from the final corner to the start-finish line, and the Senna S at the bottom of the hill, where a lot of races are won and lost on the opening lap.

It is also one of the few tracks left on the calendar where a driver can start well down the order and still win.

Max Verstappen has done exactly that twice in a row. He won the 2024 race from 17th on the grid in torrential rain, and last year he started from the pit lane and still finished on the podium, only a fraction behind Antonelli in second.

Weather is the wildcard again this year. Early November is the start of São Paulo's rainy season, afternoon thunderstorms are common, and the race starts at 2:00pm local time, right in the window where the clouds tend to roll in.

There is also no Sprint this time. Interlagos hosted a Sprint every year from 2021 to 2025, so this is the first standard weekend there since 2019, and teams get all three practice sessions to dial in their cars before qualifying.

What's Left to Play For at Interlagos

Antonelli sealed the title with four rounds to spare and sits on 380 points, 119 clear of Verstappen.

The race for second is far tighter, with Verstappen on 261, Lewis Hamilton on 259, George Russell on 250 and Charles Leclerc on 245, so a single bad Sunday in Brazil could drop any of them two or three places.

Verstappen is the man in form. His win in Mexico was his third in four races, and given his record at this circuit, he will arrive at Interlagos as the driver most people expect to beat.

Hamilton started from pole in Mexico and finished second, although another flashpoint with Leclerc on Sunday suggests the mood inside that garage is far from settled.

That form and his Interlagos pedigree are worth weighing up against the Formula 1 betting odds before the lights go out.

The constructors' title is the other thing on the line. Mercedes leave Mexico on 630 points, 126 clear of Ferrari, and only 129 points remain once Brazil is done, so outscoring Ferrari by three points at Interlagos would be enough to make it a double for the Silver Arrows.

Gabriel Bortoleto will have the home crowd behind him in the Audi after finishing eighth in Mexico, and the noise in the grandstands when a Brazilian driver is in the points is something to hear, even at 4:00am through a television.

The Australian Angle

Oscar Piastri arrives seventh on 144 points and still without a win in 2026, a tough return for a driver who led the championship for much of last season.

Mexico summed up his year, because he crossed the line seventh only for a 10-second penalty for his collision with Arvid Lindblad to drop him to 13th.

Interlagos has not been kind to him either. Last year he crashed out of the Sprint, then copped a 10-second penalty in the Grand Prix for a clash with Antonelli and finished fifth, a costly weekend in a title race he eventually lost. A clean, quiet race with a solid haul of points would count as progress.