After its rain-affected Memorial Day weekend, NASCAR had another brush with inclement weather last weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway, but rebounded after a brief delay.
The delayed NASCAR Cup Series Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day Monday averaged a 1.92 Nielsen rating and 3.399 million viewers on FOX, per numbers from ShowBuzzDaily.com, which compares reasonably well with the 2.20/3.869m for 2022’s race on Sunday, also on FOX.
Sunday’s slightly rain-impacted WWTR Cup race averaged 1.27/2.160m on FS1, down from 1.47/2.502m last year.
The first race for the NTT IndyCar Series on the new downtown Detroit Grand Prix course averaged 0.65/1.047m on NBC. Including streaming numbers, the race averaged a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 1.098m, per NBC Sports, which says it ranks as the most-watched IndyCar race outside of the Indy 500 since the St. Petersburg season opener (1.223m TAD) The TAD was also up a healthy 179% over last year’s Detroit race at Belle Isle, which had a TAD of 394,000 when it was telecast on USA Network.
NBC Sports reports that through seven races, the 2023 IndyCar season is averaging a TAD of 1.835 million viewers, up 2% vs. 2022.
After its washout at Imola, Formula 1 returned to action with the Spanish Grand Prix and averaged 0.58/1.040m on ESPN’s live telecast, down fractionally from 2022’s edition which ran in May (0.59/1.146m).
The NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Portland on Saturday averaged 0.46/824,000 on FS1, down in rating but identical in viewers to 2022 (0.56/824K). Saturday’s Craftsman Truck Series race on FS1 at WWTR averaged 0.42/698,000, compared to 0.45/663K last year.
Last weekend’s 18-49 age demographic numbers (not including streaming) had F1 up front with 453,000 viewers, followed by NASCAR Cup (413K), IndyCar (177K) Xfinity (126K) and Trucks (124K).