TV Ratings: Chicagoland, Sonoma, Singapore-110891

NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup got off to a slow start in the TV ratings wars against the big, bad NFL on Sunday.

NBCSN's telecast of the Sprint Cup race from Chicagoland scored a 1.6 rating with an average household audience of 2.7 million. That's down from a 1.9 last year and 2014's 2.7 on ESPN, according to SportsMediaWatch.

For comparison purposes, the national NFL games airing opposite the NASCAR race scored ratings of 12.2/21m viewers (CBS) and 11.0/19m viewers (FOX), respectively.

The NASCAR Xfinity Series race from Chicagoland, by contrast, was well up in audience thanks to a switch this year from NBCSN to NBC, where it scored a 1.1 rating and averaged 1.7m viewers compared to a 0.73/1.1m viewers in 2015.

NASCAR's Camping World Truck Series race from Chicagoland averaged 523,000 viewers on Friday night.

The Verizon IndyCar Series title showdown at Sonoma Raceway, which followed NASCAR on NBCSN,  scored a 0.34 rating and averaged 536,000 households. That was down from a 0.53/841,000 households in 2015, when the race was run on Aug. 30.

The Formula 1 race from Singapore was also down but to a lesser degree, scoring a 0.28 rating and averaging 419,000 viewers on NBCSN. Last year this race scored a 0.33/510,000 viewers.

Live coverage of the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series finals from Charlotte on FOX Sports 1 scored a 0.17 rating and averaged 272,000 viewers. Last year, the same event aired tape-delayed on ESPN2 and scored a 0.29/434,000 viewers.

NBC's coverage of the Red Bull Global Rallycross Championship round from Seattle on Saturday scored a 0.24 rating and averaged 340,000 households.

Ratings numbers for the Lone Star Le Mans double-header from Circuit of The Americas were not available, but the live coverage of Saturday's IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race Saturday afternoon on FOX Sports 2 averaged 33,000 viewers while the FIA World Endurance Championship round on Saturday evening averaged 23,000 viewers.