The British Grand Prix at Silverstone sold out in the shortest time in the history of the race and is set to break all attendance records this year. The sales reflect a growing surge in F1’s popularity, with race organizers at Silverstone citing unprecedented demand for tickets, while F1 expects all the remaining 20 races this year will also sell out.
All 142,000 race day tickets for the British Grand Prix on Sunday 3rd July have been sold which will set a new attendance record. The organizers assume that the demand for Friday and Saturday of the race weekend is so great that both days could be fully occupied. This would be the first time in the history of the race, which has featured on the F1 calendar every year since 1950, that all three days have sold out. If that’s the case, the weekend’s audience will surpass 2021’s record attendance of 356,000.
“We have seen unprecedented demand for tickets to the 2022 Formula 1 British Grand Prix,” said Stuart Pringle, Silverstone Managing Director. “We’ve never achieved a sell-out position so early in the year.
“We have slightly increased capacity by adding additional grandstand seating and expect our race day attendance to reach 142,000 this year. If sales continue at this rate, we expect to sell out all three days.”
Silverstone isn’t the only circuit enjoying a resurgence of interest. F1 expects all remaining 20 races to be staged with full crowds including those in the Middle East which do not have a wide motorsport audience, Abu Dhabi and Qatar which are likely to replace the canceled Russian GP.
Last season’s final in Abu Dhabi attracted 108.7 million global television viewers, while the sport drew a total of 1.55 billion viewers for 2021, a 4% increase over the 2020 season.
The final round in Melbourne attracted 420,000 fans, Australia’s highest attendance at a sporting event over the weekend. The race, which took place at 6am UK time, drew one of Sky’s highest viewing figures. It averaged 1.01m making it the most watched morning F1 race on Sky Sports, a 41% increase over the Australian GP in 2019 and a higher average than that evening’s final round of Golf Masters.
F1 recently announced it will host a race in Las Vegas next season and is expected to add Kyalami in South Africa to the calendar in the near future. The US will now host three races in 2023 as the sport expands in the market it has long wanted to crack. F1 Chief Executive Stefano Domenicali has explained that interest in hosting races has been such that the sport could easily host up to 30 meetings per season, although the calendar is currently limited to 24.
The interest is due in part to the success of the Netflix series Drive To Survive. Equally, however, F1 is also benefiting from the concerted efforts owners Liberty Media have made to attract a new, younger audience since they took over the sport in 2017.
The sport is enjoying a huge increase in interest in its digital platforms, which F1 has put significant effort and expense into trying to reach a younger and wider demographic. Given that they were starting almost from scratch, the numbers would always go up, but the scale and speed were still surprising. Engagement on social media has grown exponentially, with numbers making F1 the fastest growing major sport globally. Across all platforms, the sport reached 49.1 million followers in 2021.
Motorsportbroadcasting.com reports that F1’s Youtube channel, which shows highlights of the races, reflects that effort and the engagement it is now generating. The site recorded that five years after the 2017 Australian GP, the highlights had 3.8 million views, while this year’s race had 7.1 million views after just one day.
Comments are closed.