Race Start
Sunday, July 5 at 10:00 AM EDT
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Free .ics download — sessions appear in your local time in Google, Apple & Outlook calendars.
Round 9 of 22 · Silverstone Circuit · July 3–5, 2026 · Sprint Weekend
Free .ics download — sessions appear in your local time in Google, Apple & Outlook calendars.
| Session | Eastern | Central | Mountain | Pacific |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Practice 1 | Fri, Jul 3, 7:30 AM EDT | Fri, Jul 3, 6:30 AM CDT | Fri, Jul 3, 5:30 AM MDT | Fri, Jul 3, 4:30 AM PDT |
| Sprint Qualifying | Fri, Jul 3, 11:30 AM EDT | Fri, Jul 3, 10:30 AM CDT | Fri, Jul 3, 9:30 AM MDT | Fri, Jul 3, 8:30 AM PDT |
| Sprint Race | Sat, Jul 4, 7:00 AM EDT | Sat, Jul 4, 6:00 AM CDT | Sat, Jul 4, 5:00 AM MDT | Sat, Jul 4, 4:00 AM PDT |
| Qualifying | Sat, Jul 4, 11:00 AM EDT | Sat, Jul 4, 10:00 AM CDT | Sat, Jul 4, 9:00 AM MDT | Sat, Jul 4, 8:00 AM PDT |
| Race | Sun, Jul 5, 10:00 AM EDT | Sun, Jul 5, 9:00 AM CDT | Sun, Jul 5, 8:00 AM MDT | Sun, Jul 5, 7:00 AM PDT |
Silverstone hosted the first-ever World Championship Grand Prix in 1950, and in 2026 the home of British motorsport gets a sprint weekend — points on Independence Day weekend, with the main race on Sunday July 5. Maggotts-Becketts-Chapel remains the most awe-inspiring sequence of corners in racing, taken nearly flat in a modern F1 car. The crowd, the history, and the high-speed layout make this one of the season's marquee events.
Silverstone's character comes from its origins as a WWII bomber airfield: wide, open, exposed to the wind, and blisteringly fast. The Maggotts-Becketts-Chapel sequence is its crown jewel — a snaking chain of direction changes entered at over 290 km/h where a modern F1 car pulls 5g, and where the difference between a great car and a good one is visible to the naked eye. Copse, Stowe, and Abbey add three more corners most circuits would headline.
For 2026 the weekend carries a sprint, so the classic Silverstone variables — wind direction changing corner speeds hour to hour, and weather fronts marching across the Midlands — get two races to interfere with instead of one. The Hangar Straight into Stowe and the Wellington Straight into Brooklands offer real overtaking, and the enormous, knowledgeable crowd generates an atmosphere only Monza rivals.
Silverstone hosted the first-ever Formula 1 World Championship race on May 13, 1950, won by Giuseppe Farina for Alfa Romeo in front of the royal family. It has anchored the British Grand Prix ever since, and its modern history belongs largely to Lewis Hamilton, whose record haul of home victories — including a win on three wheels in 2020 after a last-lap puncture — made the Silverstone crowd's annual pilgrimage part of the sport's fabric.
A sprint race on the Fourth of July, starting Saturday morning US time, then the Grand Prix on Sunday morning — a solid holiday-weekend double for American fans. British summer weather is famously unstable; a dry forecast at Silverstone means nothing, which is exactly why you watch.
The 2026 schedule hands American fans a holiday gift: the sprint race runs on the morning of July 4th, with the Grand Prix following on Sunday July 5th at 10 AM Eastern / 7 AM Pacific. That's a legitimate Independence Day weekend double-header without a single late night. British weather is the wildcard worth planning around — a forecast shower turns Silverstone into the best racing of the season.
The race starts Sunday, July 5 at 10:00 AM EDT. That's 9:00 AM CDT Central, 8:00 AM MDT Mountain, and 7:00 AM PDT Pacific.
Yes. In addition to the Grand Prix, the weekend includes Sprint Qualifying (Friday, July 3 at 11:30 AM EDT) and a points-paying Sprint race (Saturday, July 4 at 7:00 AM EDT).
52 laps of the 5.891 km Silverstone Circuit, a race distance of about 306 km.
Yes — the 1950 British Grand Prix at Silverstone on May 13, 1950 was the first round of the inaugural Formula 1 World Championship, won by Giuseppe Farina for Alfa Romeo. The 2026 race continues the longest-running national Grand Prix in the sport.
New to Formula 1 or planning your viewing weekend? Read our guides to watching F1 in the US, how a race weekend works, and why F1 start times vary.