Controversy, Championship Battles Keep F1 Viewers Tuned In

While the buzz surrounding Formula One in the U.S. seems to have cooled compared to prior years, the viewership has seen a slight uptick over last year, a credit to the close battle at the top for the drivers’ and constructors’ championships.

ESPN is averaging 1.12 million viewers through 20 races this year, 1.8% higher than the 1.1 million final viewership average in 2023, but down 7.5% from 2022. Nine F1 races in 2024 have seen viewership gains over the last year, another sign of the relatively flat viewership numbers.

Saturday’s Mexican Grand Prix had an average U.S. audience of 1.12 million viewers, the second-highest viewership for the GP, but a 3% decline compared to last year’s record audience. Last week’s U.S. Grand Prix in Austin, which happened on the same weekend as the Georgia-Texas college football tilt, had 1.3 million viewers, up from 2023 but short of the 1.4 million average in 2021.

A Competitive Final Stretch

Max Verstappen and Red Bull ran away with the F1 championship races the last two years. In 2023, Verstappen sealed the drivers’ championship with six races left.

However, despite a hot start to this season, the Dutch driver is facing pressure from McLaren’s Lando Norris, who sits 47 points behind with four race weekends and two sprint races remaining. The gap is wide enough that Verstappen could finish second in all remaining races and still win the title, however, he placed sixth in Mexico to Norris’s second—a 10-point differential.

In Austin, Verstappen received two controversial 10-second penalties during incidents with Norris.

“I think today it was just not fair, clean racing,” Norris said. “Therefore, I think he got what he had coming to him.”

Verstappen said he thought the 20 seconds in total penalties he received was “a lot,” but declined to share his opinion on the actual racing incident.

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz ended up winning the race, with his teammate Charles Leclerc finishing in third, lifting the Scuderia above Red Bull and just 29 points behind McLaren in the constructors’ championship.

Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Sergio Pérez is on the hot seat again following a scoreless 17th-place finish Sunday at his home race. While it’s unclear the difference in payouts for constructors based on their place in the championship, Autosport estimated last year’s winners were awarded $140 million, compared to $131 million for second and $122 million for third.