The 2017 season saw Formula 1 register an increase in audience figures across both TV and digital platforms compared to the previous year, with F1 the fastest growing sport brand on social media platforms.

The TV cumulative audience - i.e. the aggregate of the average audience of all the F1 programs broadcast across the year - in the top 20 markets* (based on ranking of TV audience) stood at 1.4 billion, which represents an increase of 6.2% compared to 2016.

The top four markets - Germany, Brazil, Italy and the UK, ranked by absolute figures - all registered positive growth. The strongest was Italy (+19.1%), followed by Brazil (+13.4%), the UK (+3.9%) and Germany (+0.9%). Other significant increases were registered in China (+42.2%), Switzerland (+14.3%) and Denmark (+14.1%).

Cumulative viewing (live and non-live) of races remained at around 603 million, with a 1% increase in the live audience and improvements in cumulative viewing for both free practice and qualifying sessions.

During 2017, 352.3 million unique viewers tuned their TV set into F1 programming at least once - the first time since 2010 that there was not a decrease in this specific number. In the main markets there was an increase of 2.4%, with Mexico (+22.6%), Italy (+16.7%) and the USA (+13%) leading the field in terms of improvement. Brazil is still the biggest TV market with more than 76 million viewers, despite a slight decrease (-1.8%) compared to 2016.

The number of users of Formula 1’s social media platforms also grew significantly during 2017, with a total of 11.9 million followers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

The improvement compared to 2016 was up to 54.9%, which made Formula 1 2017’s fastest growing sport brand on social media, as shown in the table below: