2021 F1 Audience Figures Announced: 6 Reasons Why There's Positive Growth

The 2021 Formula 1 season was record breaking in many aspects. Despite the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, Formula 1 dynamically managed to complete 22 races in the season, which was a new record! All of these struggles were rewarded by the fans, and the 2021 season saw big leaps in the numbers of engagement and viewership both in-person and across multiple platforms. All of this meant that Formula 1 was the fastest growing major sports league on the planet in terms of follower growth in 2021, with social media followers across all platforms growing by 40% to 4.91 crore followers.

There were numerous reasons for this growth too. Here's a few:

1. To pull in crowds, F1 introduced the new concept of "F1 Sprint Qualifying" at 3 events, shaking up the format of the weekend.
   
2. Netflix's Drive To Survive docu-series continued to bring new fans in connection to the F1 world by making the sport more relatable.
   
   
3. The F1 cars of 2021 were the 5th version of their generation which had brought all the teams closer together in terms of pace, providing a host of different winners and podium sitters from multiple teams even toward the bottom of the midfield.
   
4. The simplified front wings from 2020 were supposed to provide closer racing, and they did so a year later in 2021.
   
   

   2018 vs 2019 Front wing comparison

5. Multiple gimmicks from F1 in telecasting, like the AWS graphics which showed overtake probabilities, possible tyre strategies and tyre life of drivers' cars helped both new and old viewers of the sport understand the races better.
   
6. And, perhaps the most important, the rivalry between seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton and the young and incredibly talented Max Verstappen, and their respective teams, Mercedes & Red Bull, was unparalleled in this generation and went down to the very last lap of the whole season.

Since the Championship Protagonists went to the title decider in Abu Dhabi level on points, the season finale was gargantuan with 10.8 crore viewers.

We also saw record breaking attendances in Grands Prix like the US GP at the Circuit of the Americas, Austin, with 4 Lakh fans present for the event. With a multitude of GPs pulling in mammoth crowds, despite the ongoing pandemic and many races being held behind closed doors the total attendance figure for the season was close to 27 Lakh fans!

This positive growth in numbers is extensively benefiting for the sport, and will certainly help draw in ever-needed sponsorships for the teams. With another record-breaking 23 races planned for this year and the shake up in all teams with the new regulations this year, we can speculate that these numbers will keep growing in the years to come, and might also influence new teams into entering the championship.