Bumper Buriram crowd fuels MotoGP audience increase

The addition of a 19th round allowed MotoGP to build its trackside audience to 2,884,242 spectators during the 2018 season.

That was 218,436 higher than 2017, but the total would have dropped slightly had the new Thai round not pulled in the highest attendance of the year, with 222,535 fans over the three days at Buriram.

The biggest increase in crowd numbers relative to last year was at the Sachsenring, which added 28,554 more spectators, while the biggest drop was for the Valencia season finale, with -38,999.

That's perhaps not a surprise given the 2017 event was a MotoGP title showdown and there was heavy rain throughout this year's event.

The Red Bull Ring (206,746) and Le Mans (206,617) were the only rounds other than Buriram to boast over 200,000 weekend fans.

The biggest single-day attendance of the year was Sunday at the French Grand Prix (105,203), which narrowly edged out Assen (105,000), Sepang (103,984) and Buriram (100,245).

The inaugural Thai Grand Prix did not appear to hurt the neighbouring Sepang round, which grew by 3,371 fans - no doubt helped by the arrival of Malaysia's first MotoGP rider Hafizh Syahrin.

The least attended grand prix of the year was once again Qatar, with 31,618 fans during the season-opening night event, followed by Phillip Island (86,250) and Motegi (96,425).

MotoGP exceeded two-million spectators a season with the addition of a 17th round in 2005, reaching a previous peak of 2,717,314 during 2015.