Ryan Blaney Doesn’t Hold Back On NASCAR, Formula 1 Rivalry originally appeared on The Spun.
The NASCAR Cup Series held the Quaker State 400 on a Saturday, opening the door for Formula 1 to have Sunday all by itself. That made things a bit interesting as far as the ratings were concerned.
Saturday’s broadcast was the first NASCAR Cup Series race on TNT since July 2014. It turns out 1.6 million viewers tuned in for the race at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta. Chase Elliott came out on top, edging out Brad Keselowski, Alex Bowman and the rest of the field.
Lando Norris, meanwhile, continued his excellent season with McLaren by coming in first place at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Even though Formula 1 is on the rise, NASCAR won the ratings battle. However, it wasn’t the type of victory media members were willing to celebrate.
“Ugh, Saturday night NASCAR races just can’t seem to pull numbers. NASCAR says it got an average of 1.6 million viewers for the Atlanta race,” Jeff Gluck of The Athletic wrote. “Also, if you were wondering about F1 viewership on the F1 movie’s premiere weekend, the Austria race got 1.1 million viewers (a record for that race, but only up two percent over last year).”
On Wednesday morning, Ryan Blaney responded to Gluck’s remarks about NASCAR’s TV ratings.
“So, we got 500k more folks tuned in,” Blaney replied. “Why do people make it out to be a bad thing? We crush the parade every week, so why do we get down in the dumps by this? Nascar is currently crushing it.”
While we can’t fault Blaney for defending the Cup Series, it’s worth noting that Saturday’s ratings were way below the season average (2.88 million viewers through 18 races).
NASCAR will try to redeem itself on Sunday when the Cup Series heads over to the Chicago Street Course.
Related: NASCAR Fans Calling For Change To Cup Series Schedule
Ryan Blaney Doesn’t Hold Back On NASCAR, Formula 1 Rivalry first appeared on The Spun on Jul 2, 2025
This story was originally reported by The Spun on Jul 2, 2025, where it first appeared.
Read the full article here