3 Aug 2026
Nearly 3.7 million fans attended Formula 1 race weekends in the first half of 2026, a 6% rise on the same races the year before, as the sport reported five new circuit attendance records and sharp television audience growth in Brazil, Italy and China.
Formula 1's on-track storylines have not been the only measure of a strong 2026 season. According to figures published by Formula1.com, every event held so far this year has sold out, with close to 3.7 million fans attending race weekends compared with 3.4 million across the same rounds in 2025 — a 6% year-on-year increase. Five circuits set new attendance records over the first half of the season, including a 7% rise at the Austrian Grand Prix and a season-opening crowd of 484,000 across the Australian Grand Prix weekend in Melbourne.
Television audiences have grown alongside attendance, with Formula1.com citing particularly strong gains in Brazil, Italy and China; in Brazil, the report states, race-weekend broadcasts have drawn audiences up to five times larger than in 2025. Digital and social engagement has grown too — the same figures point to 269 million social media views and 84 million social video views across the season's content so far, alongside a 72% rise in live viewers across YouTube, Twitch and Facebook compared with the year before, driven in part by three events held at the sport's sim-racing studio in Biggin Hill.
The growth comes as the sport continues to publish progress against its environmental commitments. Formula1.com reported a 35% reduction in the sport's carbon footprint, including sustainable-fuel credits, against its 2018 baseline — part of a stated commitment to reach Net Zero by 2030.
Coming in a season defined by the sport's biggest technical reset in over a decade, the attendance and viewership figures suggest the changes have not cost Formula 1 any of the audience growth it built over the preceding seasons — if anything, the new competitive order, with Mercedes and a teenage championship leader at the front, appears to have added to the draw.
After the worst start of any established team in 2026 — 10th in the constructors' championship on a single point — Aston Martin's 16-part upgrade at the Hungarian Grand Prix cut their race-day deficit from over five seconds a lap to close to two, with Honda's first in-season engine upgrade arriving this weekend at the Dutch Grand Prix.
Four seasons after their last title, Mercedes have won eight of the first eleven 2026 races and lead both championships comfortably at the summer break — with rookie-turned-contender Kimi Antonelli out front and George Russell third, their strongest form since the end of the hybrid-dominance era.
Formula 1's reigning world champion has one grand prix win and three retirements through eleven rounds of 2026 — a season shaped more by McLaren's reliability than by his pace.
Formula 1's newest team enters its second half still searching for a maiden points finish, and does so under new leadership after Cadillac replaced team principal Graeme Lowdon with Marcin Budkowski partway through its debut season.