Airing in the overnight hours and on cable, the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix still delivered a seven-figure audience in its debut.
Despite starting just before 1 AM ET Sunday morning, the inaugural Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix averaged a 0.7 rating and 1.31 million viewers on ESPN — the largest F1 audience since the Sunday afternoon Canadian Grand Prix on ABC in June (1.76M). Max Verstappen’s win, which peaked early with 1.5 million from 1:15-1:30 AM, delivered the sixth-largest audience of the season and third-largest on cable.
Viewership surpassed the United States Grand Prix last month, which aired in a Sunday afternoon window on ABC but opposite NFL games (1.17M). Not surprisingly, Las Vegas was no match for the Miami Grand Prix — which averaged 1.96 million on ABC in May and debuted a year earlier with 2.58 million.
No figure was disclosed in a Tuesday press release, but ESPN says the race was the second-most watched F1 event ever on ESPN+ behind this year’s Miami GP.
Las Vegas led all markets for the race with a 7.4 rating, followed by Los Angeles (1.5), Tulsa (1.3), Seattle (1.2) and Phoenix (1.1). The top Eastern time zone market was Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C., with a 0.9.
F1 is now averaging 1.12 million viewers for the season, still shy of last year’s record audience of 1.21 million, but the second-highest F1 average on record. Viewership is up 18% from 2021 (949K).
Qualifying for the race averaged 626,000 in the overnight hours of Saturday morning.
For more weekend sports ratings, see the usual chart. Additional information from ESPN PR.
