For the third year in a row, Formula 1 has seen its audience figures grow across both TV and digital platforms compared to the previous season. The total global TV cumulative audience stood at 1.922bn, the highest since 2012, which represents an increase of 9% compared to 2018. This is the third consecutive year of growth. In the top 20 markets (based in ranking of TV audience) it reached 1.781bn, with the same increment year-on-year. As they were last year, the top five markets by cumulative audience are Brazil, Germany, Italy, UK and the Netherlands, all with audiences higher than 100m. Among the top 20 markets, meanwhile, there have been exceptional increases; in Poland (+256%) and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region (+228%,) mostly driven respectively by new contract arrangements and Robert Kubica’s return to F1, and the new agreement signed in 2019 with MBC Group. Greece (+75%), the Netherlands (+56%), Italy (+29%) and Germany (+23%) were the countries with the highest increases, while the audience continues to grow in the United States (+7%) and in China (+5%). READ MORE: 5 reasons why 2020 could be Ferrari's year

Overtakes like these helped keep the fans on tenterhooks

In terms of unique viewers, during 2019 the sport remained stable in the top 20 markets at 405.5m (+0.3%), while there was a slight decrease globally (-3.9%), with the overall number of viewers standing at 471m. Brazil, China, Germany, USA and Italy are the five markets with the highest reach. Poland (+569.7%) with 8.4m viewers and the Middle East (+ 239.6%) at 17.6m registered the highest growth. Within the top 20 markets Germany (+45.6%), the Netherlands (+31.1%) and Greece (+18%) had double-digit growth. Nineteen out of the 21 Grands Prix had a higher cumulative audience compared to the previous season. The Italian Grand Prix had the highest of the year with 112m viewers (+20% YOY), which is also the highest since the 2016 Mexican Grand Prix. Three more events also had more than 100m viewers – Monaco, Brazil and Germany – and a total of 14 had more than 90m, with an average audience of 91.5m. In terms of the different sessions of a race weekend, 2019 saw an increase in both race (+7%) and qualifying (+5%) live broadcasts, while there has been a double-digit improvement in practice (+24%), delayed race (+11%) broadcasts and magazines and support programmes (+16%).