IndyCar’s Freedom 250 Grand Prix Delivers With 3.2 Million Viewers

The viewership numbers of the Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington DC

FOX Sports

IndyCar’s Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington DC on Sunday, August 23 was watched by 3,282 million viewers. That’s the most-viewed non-Indy 500 race since the start of the IndyCar Series when the Indy Racing League and Champ Car merged before the 2008 season.

It was up 364 percent over last year’s 708,000 viewers for the FOX portion of last year’s 15^th race from Portland, when the first 31 minutes started on FS1.

Sunday’s viewership was up 279 percent with last year’s 867,000 viewers for Sunday non-Indy 500 races on FOX.

The race partially overlapped with the NASCAR Cup race from New Hampshire which ran on USA from 2:14-6:36 pm.

The full race telecast averaged 1,686,000 viewers and the race peaked with 3,482,000 viewers from 2:30-2:45pm.

IndyCar on FOX is averaging 1,875,000 viewers through 15 races, up 32 percent vs. last year’s season to date of 1,416,000 and up 70 percent over the 2024 season to date when 1,106,000 for races on NBC/USA/CNBC.

It was IndyCar’s gift to the 250^th Birthday of the United States, but the positive reaction from those that came from around the world to witness the race may be IndyCar’s biggest gift. Many of those fans had never attended an auto race before. Some left the race saying they were now IndyCar fans.

From a racing standpoint, Kyle Kirkwood of Jupiter, Florida dominated, winning the race after leading 128 laps of the 147-lap contest. There was plenty of action, though, throughout the field with 155 passes during the contest.