NASCAR CRUSHES F1 despite US Grand Prix drama

The viewing figures are out after NASCAR's Cup Series went head to head with Formula 1 last weekend - and it isn't good reading for the latter.

Last weekend, F1 hit Austin, Texas for the United States Grand Prix and round 18 of the 2024 season.

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The weekend involved the usual grand prix on the Sunday, but interestingly, it was also a sprint weekend, bringing added drama to the event.

Fascinatingly, though, the race in Texas also overlapped with the NASCAR Cup Series race in Las Vegas.

The South Point 400 was the first race of the Cup Series playoffs round of eight, with Joey Logano going on to secure the victory and his place in the championship four.

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NASCAR versus F1

The Formula 1 race was shown live on ABC, whilst NASCAR was able to be watched live on NBC, with the viewing figures now in.

There was absolutely no question which was more popular with viewers in the US, either, according to statistics revealed by Blackbook Motorsport.

According to their report, 2.23 million viewers watched Logano take the win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, whilst in comparison, just 1.3 million viewers watched the F1 and Charles Leclerc take the checkered flag in Austin.

Whilst that figure represents a slight increase from 2023 for F1 (1.17M), the 2024 figure still remains lower than both the 2022 (1.34M) and 2021 (1.41M) data.

In that sense, viewership of F1 in the United States appears to be stagnating having grown above the million mark following Netflix's hit series Drive to Survive.

NASCAR's figures for the race in Vegas have remained consistent in recent years, meanwhile, all hitting the two million or more mark, apart from in 2020 which narrowly missed out (1.97M).

Whilst perhaps unsurprising, the above data re-affirms that F1 still has a long way to go before it catches up with NASCAR in terms of popularity in the United States, especially given the F1 figures are from a US race.

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