ABC’s live telecast of Sunday’s Formula 1 United States Grand Prix from Circuit of The Americas attracted the largest U.S. television audience on record for the event as an average of 1.5 million viewers tuned in for the race-only portion of the telecast. The audience was up 14 percent over last year’s race viewership, based on Nielsen Big Data + Panel data.
The audience marked the 12th event viewership record set this season in 19 F1 races, with all but two of the 19 experiencing year-over-year audience growth. Viewership peaked at 1.6 million between 4:15-4:30 p.m. as Max Verstappen drove to victory, further tightening up the battle for the F1 driver’s championship with only five races left in the season.
The race telecast, which ran from 3-4:45pm ET, also attracted 539,000 average viewers in the ages 18-49 demographic, an increase of 10 percent over last year’s race.
All but two races this season (Miami, Singapore) have seen year-over-year viewership increases and 12 of the 19 (Australia, China, Monaco, Spain, Canada, Austria, Great Britain, Belgium, The Netherlands, Italy, Azerbaijan, USGP) scored event record audiences.
Across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC, F1 races are averaging 1.3 million viewers, ahead of the all-time U.S. television record average of 1.21 million that was set in 2022.
F1 has another chance at big numbers on a free-to-air broadcast network this weekend with the Mexico City Grand Prix on Sunday, Oct. 26, on ABC, which starts at 3:55 p.m. ET.