Sky F1 channel update after Luke Littler takes centre stage with darts title triumph

Sky F1 channel returns to screens after Luke Littler darts triumph

The move became something of a template for the broadcaster, with such sports as Premier League football, cricket and golf all receiving specialised channels over recent years.

However, Sky F1 was taken off air shortly after the conclusion of the F1 2024 season at last month’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix with channel 406 rebranded as Sky Sports Darts for the Christmas season.

Darts has soared in popularity over recent years, with the 2024 final between teenage sensation Littler and eventual champion Luke Humphries attracting a peak audience of 3.71 million – the highest peak audience for a non-football event in Sky Sports history.

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Littler, 17, returned to win the 2025 title by defeating three-time PDC world champion Michael van Gerwen, collecting £500,000 in prize money in the process.

The audience for the final fell short of 2024, but still attracted an average of 2.7m with a peak of around 3.1m.

With the tournament now over, the Sky F1 channel has returned to air ahead of the F1 2025 season, which commences with the Australian Grand Prix on March 16.

The rise of Warrington-born Littler has drawn comparisons with Red Bull driver and reigning F1 World Champion Max Verstappen, who burst on to the F1 scene as a 17-year-old in 2015.

Verstappen secured a fourth consecutive World Championship in F1 2024, becoming only the second driver in the sport’s history after Red bull icon Sebastian Vettel to win his first four titles in successive years.

Despite his success, Verstappen has frequently threatened to walk away from F1 over recent years, citing the ever-expanding race calendar and his willingness to try other forms of motor racing as factors likely to drive him away.

Verstappen’s quit threats were recently echoed by Littler, who met the Red Bull driver during a visit to last year’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone, with the teenager hinting he could walk away from darts aged 27 after a decade at the top.

Littler told the Times: “I’ve been playing a long time in the juniors, in the old British Darts Federation.

“I might just do ten or fifteen years and retire if I’ve had enough.”

The F1 2024 season proved a controversial one for Sky F1, with a number of pundits drawn into a war of words with Verstappen.

Damon Hill, the 1996 World Champion, likened Verstappen to Dick Dastardly, the villain in the children’s cartoon Wacky Races, after the Red Bull driver was hit with two 10-second penalties for separate clashes with British driver Lando Norris during the Mexican Grand Prix in October.

Hill’s fellow pundit Martin Brundle also criticised Verstappen, claiming the 27-year-old’s unsporting conduct in wheel-to-wheel battle risks tainting his F1 legacy.

Hill announced his departure from Sky F1 weeks later, having joined the broadcaster in early 2012, with FIA steward and former Sky F1 pundit Johnny Herbert later revealing the 64-year-old was left “very unhappy” by the public response to his views.

Verstappen took aim at the British media after his impressive victory at the following race in Brazil, pointing out a shortage of UK journalists in the post-race press conference at Interlagos after Norris’s title hopes suffered a fatal blow.

Verstappen’s father, the former F1 driver Jos Verstappen, later claimed that the negative treatment by the British media had fuelled his son’s desire to prove his critics wrong in Brazil.

Sky F1 was previously boycotted by Red Bull and Verstappen at the 2022 Mexican Grand Prix after taking exception to comments made by pit-lane reporter Ted Kravitz.

Kravitz had remarked that Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton was “robbed” of the World Championship at the controversial F1 2021 title decider in Abu Dhabi, where Verstappen claimed his maiden World Championship.