The second Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix was no match for the first, but topped every other live F1 race in U.S. TV history.
Sunday’s Formula 1 Miami GP averaged a 1.0 rating and 1.96 million viewers on ABC, down 30% in ratings and 24% in viewership from last year’s inaugural edition of the race (1.3, 2.58M) but still the second-largest live F1 audience ever on U.S. television. Including tape-delayed races, it ranks third behind Miami last year and taped coverage of the 2002 Monaco GP (2.78M).
Four of the five largest live F1 audiences have occurred in the past two seasons.
Largest F1 audiences on U.S. television
Max Verstappen’s win — which peaked with 2.2 million from 4:45-5 PM ET — was outdrawn head-to-head by the competing NASCAR Cup Series race from Kansas on FS1 (1.35, 2.35M). The reverse was true in the adults 18-49 demographic, where F1 dominated NASCAR 0.61 to 0.33.
For the second-straight year, ABC carried the Miami GP in lieu of its traditional Sunday afternoon NBA coverage. Viewership was a fraction of what ABC averaged in that Sunday window the previous week (Warriors-Kings Game 7: 9.84M) and the lowest for the network in that Sunday afternoon window since it carried an XFL game opposite the final round of the Masters last month.
The competing Celtics-Sixers NBA game on ESPN averaged 5.1 million viewers.
Host market Miami-Ft. Lauderdale led all markets with a 3.4 rating, down from 3.7 last year. West Palm Beach (2.5), Austin, Texas (2.4), Buffalo (1.5) and Knoxville, Tenn. (1.5) rounded out the top five.
Including pre-race coverage, the race averaged a 0.9 and 1.65 million — down from last year’s 1.1 and 2.07 million. A Sunday night encore on ESPN2 chipped in a 0.06 and 117,000.
(Nielsen estimates from network PR, ShowBuzz Daily 5.9)
