TV ratings: Loudon, Road America, Silverstone

A return to Sunday afternoon from the previous week's Thursday race lifted the audience for the NASCAR Cup Series round at Loudon's New Hampshire Motor Speedway, but it was still a day of pluses and minuses. NBCSN's telecast of the race averaged a 1.38 Nielsen rating, representing an average of 2.2 million viewers. That's down from the 1.67/2.7m that watched the Cup Series at Watkins Glen on this weekend last year, and from last July's NHMS race on the same network (1.72/2.8m).

The Formula 1 British Grand Prix on ESPN averaged 0.47/736,000 viewers, which was a healthy increase on the 0.40/591,000 that watched last year's Silverstone race on ESPN2 but roughly even with ESPN's last F1 race two weeks ago in Hungary (0.42/703K).

While NASCAR was on cable Sunday, IMSA's WeatherTech SportsCar Championship got broadcast network airtime on NBC and, as detailed yesterday, the results were impressive. The Road America telecast averaged 0.44/616,000 viewers, a huge increase from the 0.21/338K that watched this race on the same weekend last year when it aired on NBCSN.