THE STUNNING Turkish Grand Prix delivered Lewis Hamilton his record-equaling seventh Formula 1 World Championship and also delivered a big audience on Australian TV.

WORDS: Richard Craill IMAGES: Renault Sport Media

THE WET and wild Grand Prix started at the premium time of 9:00pm (AEST) on Sunday night, the prime-time slot delivering the biggest Grand Prix Audience of the year to Fox Sports.

The 158,000 who tuned in to the race was not only 14,000 larger than the previous best race of the year (the similarly well-timed, but much less exciting Russian Grand Prix) but also one of the biggest in some time.

Excluding the Australian Grand Prix, the Turkish GP was the seventh most-watched Grand Prix on Fox Sports in the last three seasons and the third most-watched in 2019 or 2020.

It brings the average audience for the year to just over 107,000 – up marginally (1%) on races shown in the traditional European time slot last year.

Kayo Sports has not yet released any figures surrounding their F1 coverage this year.

Formula 1’s ratings have been solid this season, though the average is like to take a dip with the final three races to be held in the less time-zone friendly Middle East.

The Bahrain Grand Prix starts just after 1AM on Monday morning Australian Eastern Daylight time, while the following Sakhir Grand Prix a week later, run under lights, starts at some ungodly hour in the early AM.

The final round of the world-championship concluding triple header in Abu Dhabi will start just after midnight on Monday, December 14.

Ratings Watch Archive – Click Here

SOURCES: TV Tonight, Mediaweek, TV Black Box.

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