Watch a Formula 1 race and the business looks obvious: fans in the grandstands, cars on track, a winner on the podium.
But the ticket revenue from that grandstand almost entirely bypasses Formula 1 itself.
It goes to the local race promoter.
What F1's parent company, Liberty Media, actually collects is something most fans never think about: a hosting fee, paid by the circuit or, increasingly, by the national government behind it, just for the right to be on the calendar at all.
A revenue model with no single centre of gravity
