MORE THAN 1.6 million people have watched the 2021 Repco Bathurst 1000, delivering the race a handy increase on the 2020 numbers as the Seven Network returned to the Great Race.

An average metropolitan audience of 747,000 watched the race itself on Seven, up from 669,000 on 10 last year.

That audience swelled to more than 816,000 for the celebrations as Chaz Mostert and Lee Holdsworth celebrated their big victory.

A further 533,000 tuned in regionally for a national audience of 1.28m on the free-to-air network.

Fox Sport’s 371,000 was up 24,000 on their number from the 2020 race as well.

The total audience of 1.651m was up by more than six per cent on 2020.

Seven reported that more than 4.1 million people watched the race on their network, including a substantial streaming audience on 7plus.

Earlier in the weekend, Saturday’s top-10 shootout drew 936,000 people which was marginally down on 2020 – though Fox Sports’ 252,000 audience was up on their 246,000 from last year.

Regardless, it was at the time the second biggest Supercars TV audience of the season.

Friday’s thrilling qualifying session drew 451,000 across both networks, a 5 per cent increase on 2020 and the largest Friday session in five years.

While the metro audience was down on last year, Fox’s Friday audience was up as were the regional numbers.