One thing I have not really focussed on during this blog is how well Formula 1 sites perform and which sites receive more hits than others. So I thought it would be a good time to have a look at a few Formula 1 websites and see where they rank in the world.

The key here is “the lower the rank, the higher the hits”.

– 2,367 – The official Formula 1 website
———–———–———–———–———–
– 01 – 6,395 – AUTOSPORT
– 02 – 7,435 – ESPN F1
– 03 – 8,748 – Auto Motor Und Sport
– 04 – 16,684 – PlanetF1.com
– 05 – 17,133 – GPUpdate.net
– 06 – 32,329 – Crash.net
– 07 – 33,942 – F1Fanatic.co.uk
– 08 – 68,531 – Motorsport.com
– 09 – 90,149 – James Allen on F1
– 10 – 138,396 – GrandPrix.com
– 11 – 145,747 – Pitpass.com
– 12 – 226,531 – F1Today.net

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.

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 surprised me though given that it does not screen any Formula 1 in the United Kingdom, or in America. What you have to remember though is that ESPN is a big brand in America, so although they do not hold the broadcasting rights in America, it may well be the first portal for news for the majority of American Formula 1 fans. It is a bit like ITV over here, although they relinquished the Formula 1 rights in 2008, their website was so successful that they kept it for a further three years until traffic dropped significantly.

Behind the top three you have a gap in rank before PlanetF1 and GPUpdate are clustered together. PlanetF1 may surprise some, but as an indirect subsidiary of BSkyB it means that their website appears among many at the footer of the Sky Sports website, including the Sky Sports F1 homepage. So even if PlanetF1 may not be the most credible of news sites, the link may go some way to explain why it appears fourth in the twelve websites above. Crash.net follows up in sixth, but considering the Crash website has both MotoGP and Formula 1 content, one of the few websites to do so, I do think that it should be further up in that both two wheel and four wheel fanbases should be attracted to the website.

F1Fanatic.co.uk has done well for itself, but the same cannot be said for Motorsport.com and GrandPrix.com. Both have been online for nearly twenty years, but I would have thought that they should be higher because of their URL names, they are generic terms you would type into Google. So from that perspective, I would have expected them to be higher up. I do note that the latter is not being updated as much now, so I am not sure if it is on its way out. James Allen’s is not a news website as such, but I thought it would be an interesting inclusion as a personal blog while Pitpass and F1Today.net round off the list.

Source: Alexa Web Company. The ranks above are the three month average global traffic rank for each website taken on October 22nd, 2012. 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.

Sebastian Vettel’s victory may not mean much for Twitter considering Vettel is yet to have an account, whilst Lewis Hamilton has gone AWOL after saying that he is reconsidering his use of the service following his tweets concerning Jenson Button. In any event, let’s see who has gained the most followers in the past seven days…

Drivers – The Top 10
01 – 1,195,360 – Jenson Button (McLaren)
02 – 1,164,797 – Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
03 – 1,149,581 – Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
04 – 506,724 – Bruno Senna (Williams)
05 – 460,206 – Mark Webber (Red Bull)
06 – 319,025 – Sergio Perez (Sauber)
07 – 282,890 – Pastor Maldonaldo (Williams)
08 – 209,423 – Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
09 – 185,807 – Pedro de la Rosa (HRT)
10 – 184,961 – Felipe Massa (Ferrari)

Drivers – Biggest Increases
01 – 25,695 – Lewis Hamilton
02 – 21,103 – Fernando Alonso
03 – 20,122 – Jenson Button
04 – 12,055 – Mark Webber
05 – 9,167 – Felipe Massa

Drivers – Smallest Increases
01 – 588 – Charles Pic
02 – 747 – Jean-Eric Vergne
03 – 1,707 – Daniel Ricciardo
04 – 1,888 – Timo Glock
05 – 2,188 – Narain Karthikeyan

Stay off Twitter, gain more followers! Possibly. Well, definitely for this week in the case of Hamilton.

A change in the top 10 further down, as Heikki Kovalainen exits the top 10 and Felipe Massa enters it after gradually moving up the list since the blog began in April. Massa is a certainty to move up into ninth next week. It is Kovalainen’s second loss in position in the past few weeks, however, as Pedro de la Rosa moved past him two weeks ago.

Teams – The Top 10
01 – 352,825 – Ferrari
02 – 247,089 – McLaren
03 – 171,155 – Red Bull
04 – 157,617 – Mercedes
05 – 144,400 – Lotus
06 – 89,349 – Caterham
07 – 85,301 – Marussia
08 – 83,698 – Force India
09 – 83,232 – Sauber
10 – 77,670 – Williams

Teams – Biggest Increases
02 – 6,163 – Red Bull
01 – 4,722 – Ferrari
03 – 2,964 – McLaren

Teams – Smallest Increases
01 – 719 – Williams
02 – 805 – Toro Rosso
03 – 1,020 – Caterham

Williams again at the foot of the table for the third time in five weeks. Red Bull gain the largest amount of followers thanks to winning the last three races.

Driver and Team statistics as of Monday 15th October 2012.