Four free-to-air races to be shown in Germany following new exclusive Sky deal

Formula 1 has announced a new exclusive pay-TV deal with Sky Deutschland, which will show all F1 sessions from 2021 onward.

Last week, RTL announced that is free-to-air coverage of F1 would end at the conclusion of the 2020 campaign after almost 30 years of broadcasting.

The new deal with Sky Germany will see four races per year shown on free-to-air, while a 30-minute highlight show will be broadcast after each race on the free-to-air channel Sky Sport News HD.

F1 confirmed that there will be no commercial breaks during the race action and that there will be more “digital and social content on Skysport.de and social media than ever before”.

F1 TV Pro, which was made accessible to Germany last year, will now be available to Sky Sports subscribers.

“Formula 1 and Sky have enjoyed a long-standing relationship, working well together to enhance the broadcast offering by providing comprehensive coverage of the sport for our passionate fan base,” said F1's director of media rights Ian Holmes.

“I am delighted that our work together will continue to build and strengthen the impressive quality of Sky’s programming, as well as their digital reach.”

Devesh Raj, CEO Sky Germany, added: “This will be the best motorsports experience ever. We know motorsport fans love the way we produce F1 and our commentators have fans all of their own, but now with the first channel dedicated to F1 content on German TV ever we’ll give fans more F1 content than has ever been seen on German TV before.

“With our unique digital content offering and four races free for everyone every year, we will help introduce millions more people to the joy of F1 and help grow the sports across the motorsport country Germany. This exciting new deal shows that Sky is the number one for sports fans in Germany.”

Germany will have just one driver on the grid in 2020 in Sebastian Vettel, however his future in F1 is in major doubt following last months announcement that he will leave Ferrari at the end of the year.

The country has held a grand prix on a biennial basis over the course of the turbo-hybrid era, except for 2019 when a Mercedes deal saw the race included on the 2019 calendar.