(Photo credit: REUTERS/Piroschka Van De Wouw)

The Monaco Grand Prix delivered the third-largest Formula 1 audience in history in the United States despite heavy criticism of the iconic track after Sunday's race.

The race started at 9 a.m. ET and drew 2.3 million viewers on ABC, the most ever for the Monaco Grand Prix. The only F1 races to draw more viewers were the Miami Grand Prix in 2024 (3.1 million) and 2022 (2.6 million), per Front Office Sports. This year's Monaco race did bring in more U.S. viewers than Miami (2.1 million) earlier this month.

Through seven races in 2025, F1 is averaging 1.3 million viewers. Each of the past two seasons averaged 1.1 million, although the first half of the year does include the popular Miami and Monaco events.

F1 signed an extension with Monaco last year that runs through 2031. However, despite F1's experiment to require teams to make at least two pit stops, Sunday's race featured a largely unchanged top-10.

McLaren's Lando Norris won the event from the pole, although he did overtake Max Verstappen on the second-to-last lap when the Red Bull star was forced to take his second required pit stop on the penultimate lap. That drew widespread criticism from drivers and fans, but F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali defended rule change.

'We know that the width of the street is (limited) and the cars are quite big, so the attempt is to create attention to that,' Domenicali told Sky Sports F1.

'It was great to see that the day before everyone was thinking that everyone has to (do a pit) stop on the first lap, and a lot of discussion, so no one understood exactly anything. I think it was the right attempt and the attention was definitely there.'

A decision on whether the two-stop rule will return for 2026 has not been made, but Domenicali pushed back against critics of the race.

'The Monaco event has been amazing,' he said. 'We never had so many people, so many boats, so much attention. That means that the event itself is what Formula 1 wants, and that is really great.'

--Field Level Media