Formula 1 has revealed that over 100m watched the final Grand Prix of the 2021 season, as Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton settled their year-long championship fight in what would prove ultimately one of the most controversial races ever seen.

The 2021 campaign as a whole was epic from start to finish as Verstappen and Hamilton went wheel-to-wheel in nearly every Grand Prix, and it all came down to the final race in Abu Dhabi in mid-December.

Indeed, it looked like Hamilton was going to take the victory and the championship before a late Safety Car was called and the final few laps paved the way for Max Verstappen to dramatically take the win on the final lap.

Heavily promoted and hyped in the days before lights out, Formula 1 managed to attract a massive audience ranging from die-hard fans to first-time watchers, and the figures are absolutely stunning:

"The season finale in Abu Dhabi was huge with 108.7m viewers, +29% higher than the same race in 2020 and the highest viewing figures for a race during the season," a statement read on the F1 website.

"The cumulative TV audience for 2021 was 1.55bn, up +4% from the 2020 season. We also saw strong audiences for the season opener in Bahrain (84.5m), and for the 3 Sprint weekend events at Silverstone (79.5m), Monza (80.4m) and Sao Paulo (82.1m).

Verstappen & Hamilton

"There were significant rises in season cumulative audience in several markets, including many of our biggest markets. The Netherlands stood out with an increase of +81% YoY, but there were also significant gains in the USA (+58% YoY), France (+48% YoY), Italy (+40% YoY) and the UK (+39% YoY)."

Certainly, F1's popularity is beginning to soar once more and despite the controversial nature of the final race in Abu Dhabi, hopefully we'll see just as much attention on the sport as 2022 heralds a new era with regulation changes.