Some people who read the blog in the relatively early days just over a year ago may remember a piece I did entitled “Formula 1 websites and their popularity“, in which I compared the popularity of thirteen Formula 1 websites and seen which is more popular than the other. Now that the 2013 season is over, I thought it may be worthwhile to see which websites have made considerable strides in their readership numbers for the year, or vice versa as the case may be.
Again, the key here is “the lower the rank, the higher the hits”. In brackets is the difference versus 2012. Obviously the further down you go, the difference may be wildly different as a few hundred or thousand hits could make a huge difference, but it is an interesting experiment nevertheless.
– 2,686 – The official Formula 1 website (down 319 on October 2012 ranking)
———–———–———–———–———–
– 01 – 6,557 – AUTOSPORT (down 162 on October 2012 ranking)
– 02 – 7,775 – ESPN F1 (down 340 on October 2012 ranking)
– 03 – 9,676 – Auto Motor Und Sport (down 928 on October 2012 ranking)
– 04 – 17,803 – PlanetF1.com (down 1,119 on October 2012 ranking)
– 05 – 20,155 – GPUpdate.net (down 3,022 on October 2012 ranking)
– 06 – 24,661 – Crash.net (up 7,668 on October 2012 ranking)
– 07 – 25,736 – F1Fanatic.co.uk (up 8,206 on October 2012 ranking)
– 08 – 28,873 – Motorsport.com (up 39,658 on October 2012 ranking)
– 09 – 66,913 – James Allen on F1 (up 23,236 on October 2012 ranking)
– 10 – 92,945 – GrandPrix.com (up 45,471 on October 2012 ranking)
– 11 – 117,174 – F1Today.net (up 109,537 on October 2012 ranking)
– 12 – 147,190 – Pitpass.com (down 1,443 on October 2012 ranking)
For reference, I have included the official Formula 1 website, which is significantly higher than the highest dedicated Formula 1 news site. Also, BBC F1 and Sky Sports F1 are excluded from the list as the figures are not on the Alexa Web Company website, and besides, their figure would dwarf the ones listed above.
The only raw change in the table is that F1Today.net has overtaken Pitpass, however the table itself is a tale of two halves. I would have expected the main Formula 1 websites to be down year-on-year anyway due to Sebastian Vettel’s dominance in the latter half of the season. AUTOSPORT unsurprisingly is top of the websites worldwide thanks to its weekly magazine, with ESPN and Auto Motor Und Sport in third. The latter is Germany’s main Formula 1 site so a lot of its traffic is generated from Central Europe from countries such as Germany along with Austria and Switzerland to name two examples. ESPN’s website famously used to be F1 Live, which is why they are so high up the chart.
PlanetF1 (an indirect subsidiary of BSkyB) and GPUpdate both recorded drops, but then the statistics show a complete 180. Crash.net up, F1Fanatic.co.uk up and Motorsport.com significantly up. James Allen’s blog is also improving its user base which should not be a surprise to anyone. The gap, on the basis of this table is closing, with fans moving from your traditional news services to forum and blog based conversation. If you think about it, nowadays you have Allen with a blog, Joe Saward runs a blog, Will Buxton, Adam Cooper, the list goes on. It is with these blogs – the first two in particular where communities are formed, which drives traffic.
Of course, the above is not a definitive list, I’ve named thirteen Formula 1 websites. There are hundreds of websites that blog, write stories and create stories. Have I missed any websites out that may feature in the table above? (don’t mention mine, please!) On a serious note, it would be interesting to see how many of the above thirteen websites readers have visited. For me, I read AUTOSPORT, F1Fanatic.co.uk, James Allen’s site when it is linked from Twitter and that is about it. I do go onto the official Formula 1 website, but only if I’m looking for scheduling information.
Source: Alexa Web Company. The ranks above are the three month average global traffic rank for each website taken on November 29th, 2013. I think Alexa is the most reliable for tracking web analytics, but even if it is not, I thought it would be interesting to put these figures up for anyone interested.
Motorsport Broadcasting 
I used to go to Autosport, but since their ridiculous reduction to 20 views (30 if you log in – but then that limits you on other devices. Sneaky.), but now I just go to Racer – you get the Autosport stories without the silly limit. They’ve got great coverage of US motorsport too, if you’re passionate about that like me. So instead of 50 hits a month Autosport used to get from me, now they get none. Hope the sponsors are happy.
I’ll then also get my news from the two threads on Digital Spy – generally keeps you up to date on the main goings on.
James Allen is always a good read, though like you I only tend to go when something prompts me. I may go to the Beeb or Sky on occasion, and Crash sometimes, but that’s it really.
I’m more interested in goings on in Touring Cars really, and there are some very well done sites for them.
I read James Allen, F1 Fanatic, Joe Saward and Adam Cooper. and brows several of the others.
F1fanatic for me. I love the daily round ups which put all the interesting stories up for me to read in the morning.
James Allen is good as well as Joe Saward.
Although the autosport+ articles are good it’s not value for money.
I used to read f1 live, don’t know it morphed into espn. Used to read pitpass but I feel it’s far to slanted and opinionated.
F1.com is pretty useless except for the (too) short highlights.
Other than journalists blogs that’s about it.
i use autosport for up to date reliable information
f1 fanatic for in depth stuff like after race stats and round up is good and a few other fun things like caption comp
newsonf1.com for rumours and are pretty acurate
bbc f1 is only good for videos as they arent up to date with all stories.
and i usualy go on autosport,planetf1 forums as well, also for tv coverage chat i look at ds forums as well as this blog.