This weekend’s Miami Grand Prix set a new Formula 1 audience record for live US television viewership.
ESPN reported that an average of 3.1 million viewers watched the ABC broadcast on Sunday, peaking at 3.6 million. The previous average audience record was 2.6 million viewers (and peaked at 2.9 million), set at the inaugural Miami GP in 2022. TV audiences then fell for last year’s race , to reach 1.96 million.
This represents a 48% increase in viewership between 2023 and this year, and a jump of almost 20% compared to 2022 figures.
It’s also the rare, if not the first, time that F1 has beaten NASCAR in the standings. The Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway was scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. ET on Sunday, while the Miami GP was scheduled to start at 4 p.m. ET. But the AdventHealth 400 was delayed three hours by rain. Kyle Larson ended up winning the race in the closest result ever recorded in the series – a gap of 0.001 seconds to Chris Buescher. NASCAR was ultimately followed by 2.296 million people via FS1, down 2% from last year, according to Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal.
Television ratings for F1 races in the United States (ABC)
Season | Miami GP | United States General Practitioner | Las Vegas GP |
---|---|---|---|
2022 |
2.6 million |
1.34 million |
– |
2023 |
1.96 million |
1.169 million |
1.3 million |
2024 |
3.1 million |
To be determined |
To be determined |
Note: The US GP takes place on a Sunday in October and therefore competes with the NFL’s viewership in the US.
The Grand Prix’s live audience isn’t the only record set by American audiences this weekend. Saturday’s sprint race, broadcast on ESPN, averaged 946,000 viewers – a new record since the format was introduced in 2021. The previous record was held by the 2023 Azerbaijan sprint race, which averaged 883,000 viewers.
The increase in F1 viewership was likely linked to Lando Norris’ 7.6-second victory over Max Verstappen, marking the Briton’s first victory in F1. (F1 may have benefited from another sport as well – ABC aired Game 7 between the Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers before the grand prix.)
At the end of the first lap, Norris was sixth, but he “knew we had good pace and I knew we were in it for the long game.” The McLaren driver kept his head down and pushed, with Verstappen staying within reach.
“I could still see Max. And when you can see Max, there’s hope,” Norris said. “And it’s not often you get to see Max on the track. So I always knew, even when I was back in sixth, that there could be opportunities, whether there was a safety car or something in my favor.
And the safety car period went his way, allowing him to return to the pits and get fresher tires. The gap slowly grew between Norris and Verstappen as the laps decreased, and the Briton continued to push. He said: “I wanted to do the fastest lap on the last lap. But I imagined Andrea (Stella, the McLaren team principal) on the pit wall, saying ‘No, Lando, please’. So, yeah, he was talking to me, but I just thought about taking him home and taking it easy. But until then, you know, I wanted to walk away, and I didn’t want Max to be in the picture when I crossed the finish line, and I don’t think that’s the case. So it was work done.
Norris’ victory came at a critical time for the sport. While TV viewership nearly doubled from 2018 (before the debut of Netflix’s “Drive to Survive”), it fell 9.1% last year compared to 2022. That’s not not surprising, given how one-sided the race has been lately. Before Miami, Verstappen had won 23 of the last 27 races (Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Red Bull’s Sergio Pérez won two each). The Dutchman was expected to score another victory in Miami.
As George Russell said of Norris’ victory: “He deserved a race win probably many, many years ago.” And I think for all Formula 1 drivers, in this era of dominance of one team and one driver, it’s always great to see someone have this chance to achieve a victory.
Viewers seem to agree.
(Main photo of Max Verstappen, Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Anadolu via Getty Images)