This is essentially the same sport as it was in the 70s. There is an argument to be made about it being way more boring than the 70s given the ever increasing safety requirements. Cars are getting bigger and bigger while the track size stays the same, also more and more time is spent behind a pace car which was a rare thing back then, whereas now it pops out every race, sometimes multiple times per race.

F1 increasing popularity it's either a master marketing campaign from Liberty Media or people having way more free time than they used to have.