OUR MAN DAN returned to the Formula One podium in Germany on Sunday night, Australian time, while the Moto GP trip to Le Mans was again watched by a massive Aussie audience.

WORDS: Richard Craill IMAGE: Renault Sport Media

DANIEL RICCIARDO’S impressive charge to third place in the fascinating Eifel Grand Prix at the Nurburgring drew strong numbers for Fox Sports on Sunday night.

Though unable to reach the peak of the much earlier Russian Grand Prix two weeks ago, the 118,000 watching the German race was still the second-largest audience of the season so far.

The average audience this year sits at 108,000 – slightly higher than the equivalent audience for races held in the traditional European time slot last year.

F1 was only toppled on Subscription TV by the Bledisloe Cup match between Australia and New Zealand (218,000) held earlier in the day.

Early on Sunday morning, 61,000 watched the competitive qualifying session, the smallest qualy audience of the year – no doubt due to the fact it started at midnight in the Eastern states.

MOTO GP

ANOTHER blockbuster MotoGP race was matched by more impressive TV ratings as the French Grand Prix from Le Mans again drew big numbers to 10Bold on Sunday night.

While 138,000 watched the race itself, 175,000 watched the finish and the post-race show, making it the second most-watched race of the year – behind the delayed Styrian Grand Prix.

Adding in the 60,000 watching on Fox Sports and the total audience of 235,000 was substantial.

Once again, MotoGP was the number one-ranked show on Free-to-air digitial multichannels on Sunday night and narrowly missed the top 20 shows overall.

For comparison, 233,000 watched the Bledisloe Cup match on Channel 10’s primary channel much earlier in the afternoon.

The bikes have been a surprise hit for the struggling Channel 10 this year and are seemingly one of the few products they have producing what can be considered good numbers week in, week out.

Despite being on a secondary channel, the Le Mans race drew a third of the audience of 10’s most-watched prime-time show on Sunday night; junior MasterChef.

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SOURCES: TV Tonight, Mediaweek, TV Black Box.

(NOTE: Numbers are overnight metro (5 capital city) and Foxtel ratings supplied by ratings agency OzTam to media outlets. They do not include any additional reporting, including time shifted content, regional ratings or broader reach, unless released and freely available. They also do not include streaming numbers on Kayo or SuperView, etc).