F1 revenue plunges as 23-race season now assumed

Formula 1’s revenues have taken a significant hit from the disrupted 2026 calendar, even as the sport insists its controversial new era is attracting more fans and talks over a long-awaited African race accelerate.

Liberty Media revealed that F1 generated $764 million in the second quarter - down 38 percent from $1.226 billion a year earlier, with operating income collapsing from $293 million to $73 million.

The main explanation is the disrupted calendar in the midst of the Middle East conflict involving Iran.

Liberty’s accounts effectively confirm that F1 is currently planning for only 23 grands prix rather than the original 24.

The abandoned Bahrain GP has been rescued through the unusual October event at Sepang, but Liberty says the 2026 calendar is now "assumed to hold 23 races", meaning the cancelled Saudi Arabian GP is presently not expected to be replaced.

"Additional calendar changes may be necessary," Liberty nevertheless cautioned.

Financially, the disruption contrasts starkly with F1’s own recent assessment of the health of the new-regulation era.

Formula 1 says all 11 grands prix covered by its half-year review were sold out, with 3.7 million spectators attending compared with 3.4 million at the equivalent races last year, while six circuits broke attendance records.

Perhaps more strikingly given the criticism of the radically different 2026 cars and ’Mario Kart’-style racing, F1’s 60,000-member Fan Voice panel rated 66 percent of the racing ’Good or Excellent’, compared with 60 percent last season.

The sport also claims a worldwide following exceeding 830 million, up 64 percent since 2018, with 43 percent of fans under 35 and women comprising three-quarters of new followers.

That growth is intensifying pressure to finally fill the most obvious geographical hole in the calendar - Africa.

South African sports minister Gayton McKenzie told City AM that F1 cannot realistically call itself global while an entire continent remains absent.

"If you look at the African continent, and then you look at Europe - between Monza, Imola, and Monaco, it’s a close distance - you have got three Formula 1 races and in the whole African continent there is none," he said.

F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali now says that situation could change.

"Negotiations are progressing very well in Africa," he said.

South Africa and Rwanda remain the chief possibilities, while Domenicali revealed that F1 is simultaneously fielding renewed interest from Argentina, Thailand and even Germany.

"We have open discussions in South America, where there is keen interest in a return to Argentina, which has been absent since 1998, and in the Far East," said the Italian.