TV News: USA Motorsports Weekend TV Viewers/Ratings

Major motorsports TV viewership numbers from this past weekend – IndyCar ran the Indy 500, Formula 1 was in Monaco and NASCAR ran the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte.

IndyCar TV Viewers

Fox TV got 7.087million viewers (final number, not fast-overnight number) for Sunday’s Indy 500, up 33% from 5.344 million last year on NBC plus Peacock in what the network says is the most-watched edition of the race since 2008.

This is the third time in the last 30 years that the Indy 500 got bigger viewership than the Daytona 500, per Fox; both races this year had weather delays, but Daytona’s was longer.

2025 Indy 500: 7.087 million viewers
2025 Daytona 500: 6.761 million viewers

Formula 1 TV Viewers

Lando Norris of Great Britain driving the (4) McLaren MCL39 Mercedes on track during practice ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Monaco at Circuit de Monaco on May 23, 2025 in Monte-Carlo, Monaco. (Photo by Glenn Dunbar/LAT Images for McLaren)

Sunday’s Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix on ABC attracted the largest live U.S. television audience ever for the iconic event, and F1’s third-largest live U.S. television audience on record, as an average of 2.3 million viewers tuned in to the race-only portion of the telecast between 9 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. ET.

The audience broke the event’s record viewership of 2.0 million that watched last year’s race, with viewership peaking at 2.6 million during the 10:30-10:45 a.m. quarter hour. An average of 917,000 viewers (40%) were in the all-important 18-49 demographic.

Only the 2024 Miami Grand Prix (3.1 million average viewers) and the inaugural Miami event in 2022 (2.6 million) have attracted larger live U.S. television audiences for F1.

Through the Monaco race, F1 telecasts across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 are averaging 1.3 million viewers, up 18% over the 2023 and 2024 season average of 1.1 million per race. The all-time series record for average viewership was 1.2 million, set in 2022.

On Saturday, ESPN’s telecast of F1 qualifying at Monaco averaged 933,000 viewers, up 28 percent over 2024.

NASCAR TV Viewers

The Coke 600, the first-ever NASCAR Cup Series race to exclusively stream on Prime Video instead of a major network channel, got a reported 2.72 million viewers, down 12% from 3.1 million on Fox TV in 2024. That race was cut short by rain.

The broadcast peaked at 2.92 million viewers between 8:15 and 8:29pm ET

The broadcast also attracted more viewers under the age of 55 (18-34, 18-49 and 25-54) than any non-broadcast NASCAR Cup Series event since at least 2022.

Prime Video got 800,000 viewers in the P18-49 demographic for Sunday’s Coke 600, which beats all NASCAR races that have been on cable (but not broadcast TV) since at least 2022.

After Ross Chastain captured the checkered flag, a 67-minute post race show averaged 1.04M (peaking at 1.26M), despite going up against the NBA Eastern Conference finals.

Among viewers in the age 18-34 demographic, NASCAR on Prime averaged 229k. In the 18-49 demographic that went up to 800k, and reached 1 million in the 25-54 demographic. All three represent the highest viewerships for the respective demographics since at least 2022.

All figures listed are from Nielsen’s BD+P measurement. Data for Sunday’s pre-race coverage is expected to be available later this week.