RATINGS: Enormous audience watches F1 thriller
AN ENORMOUS Aussie TV audience that averaged 135,000 people has watched the remarkable Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in the early hours of Monday morning on Fox Sports.
Proving the interest in the remarkable 2021 season and the phenomenal world title showdown between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, the audience is 114% larger than the same race last year.
Last years race drew 63,000 and the year before just 41,000.
It is by far the largest TV Audience for the Abu Dhabi race we have charted on TRT.
Only the Thunder v Stars BBL 11 match drew a larger audience (163,000) on Subscription TV last night – however that was played in prime time.
It’s the third most-viewed race in F1 this year and the fourth-most in the last two seasons on Fox; the only larger races were a pair of Russian Grands Prix, which started at 9pm Eastern time, and this year’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix which also begun at a reasonable prime-time hour.
The midnight start for a majority of the TV audience in Australia makes this years Abu Dhabi GP the most-viewed post-midnight race in at least the last six years, but probably more.
As always Kayo numbers have not been released, though we suspect they will be significant and Foxtel would be mad to not release them if they are.
In the past, F1 races have been reported to draw more than 70,000 people to the Kayo stream and it is entirely likely that this race would draw more.
IMAGE: Red Bull
Richard Craill (administrator)
Working full time in the motorsport industry since 2004, Richard has established himself within the group of Australia’s core motorsport broadcasters, covering the support card at the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix for Channel 10, the Bathurst 12 Hour for Channel 7 and Porsche Carrera Cup & Touring Car Masters for FOX Sports’ Supercars coverage. Pretends to be a PR guy / Journalist and sometimes photographer to make ends meet when not yelling at a television in a padded room.
