I wondered if you can watch a Formula One race live while on a plane – turns out you can on Qatar with Starlink

With so many F1 races every single year now and being someone who travels a lot, there’s always going to be times when my flights and Formula One races clash – and I’m not a fan of missing races. So on a trip to Europe from Australia i wondered if in fact you can watch F1 Live on a plane?

Turns out – you can! If you meet the few very critical criteria that is.

So how do you watch a Formula One race on a plane?

Firstly, you need to be flying Qatar Airways. At least that’s who I was flying to make this work. Looking at the Sport24 website (that’s the channel broadcasting the race), it also streams on other airlines such as Etihad, Emirates, Cathay and Singapore Airlines.

The difference in my experience was I was able to watch on my iPad so it was easy to have my own headphones connected etc.

And on Qatar that service also relies on their recently upgraded WiFi system in-flight.

Qatar has equipped their entire Boeing 777 fleet with new Starlink WiFI systems and just for browsing the web, and for social media (Video included) it’s fast! I was getting 100Mbps download and 40Mbps uploads.

Once connected, on the infotainment screen will show a QR code, just scan that with your device and it will load the live stream on a website.

Importantly, you must be airborne, so don’t try it even while sitting at the gate.

But seriously, great news for F1 fans.

Oh, and bad luck Lando – Oscar for the win:)

A word of warning, Starlink is awesome, but like all technology it’s not perfect. Either technically or due to regulations over certain countries, you may get drop outs. I missed about 4 laps of the race due to lack of connectivity – and later in the flight while not watching F1 i noticed there was no internet again for a short while.

Still – epic stuff.